And Then I Crashed Into You
by Cantati
Summary: ... And I Went Up In Flames /The unfolding story of Dean Winchester, a hunter, and Castiel, an angel, the forbidden love set to a crumbling world background.
1. Chapter 1

_This was written for the 2010 spn_j2_bigbang on livejournal._

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><p>'Angels are everywhere, whether you like it or not.<p>

Whether it be ones with fluffy wings and halos, helping old ladies cross the streets; or metaphorical angels, like the woman across the street who always bakes an extra pie for you on Sundays; or the ones on the Christmas tree, people love, or hate, angels. No matter the wrapping, the package is always the same.

But a lot of people forget about the most basic angels; the earliest ones, the _real _angels, so to speak.

The angels in the Bible were soldiers, fighting evil to spread God's message of love and peace. Within these warrior angels, there are hierarchies, pecking orders, so to speak. There are the archangels, fifteen elite beings that were chosen to be worthy of coming face to face with God, their father, our creator. Then there are hundreds, if not thousands of angels under their command, collected in garrisons ranging from as few as seven angels to over fifty per garrison.

But angels, as heavenly and perfect as they seem, are not infallible.

Everyone has heard of Gabriel, the most powerful archangel, seventy angels in his garrison, all looking to him to lead them. He foretold the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus, the son of God. He was the anger that would blow the trumpet and foretell the end of days. But how many of you know that Gabriel, disillusioned with heaven, and his brothers and sisters, left, re-imaged himself as a trickster, a demi god present in Norse mythology, native American mythology, Greek, Roman and even Slavic mythology. Loki, Anansi; Gabriel's new being had many names and more faces.

Michael, long foretold as the one who would kill the devil, wielding Michael's sword to banish him to the fiery pit below, wasn't just the field commander of God's army. He was an older brother, loyal to the grave to both his Father and his little brother. To save God's creations, he would sacrifice his own family.

As for Lucifer, everyone knows his story. Lucifer, the morning star, was God's favourite angel. Until he fell. Why he fell? Because God asked only one thing of him. To love His creations, humankind, more than he loved Him. He couldn't do it, so God cast Lucifer out, to hell. The story everyone knows is Lucifer escaping hell to destroy earth and the creations whose very existence secures his fate. And for a lot of people, the story ends there. But Lucifer wasn't really that different to the other angels. He loved his brothers and sisters, and he loved his Father.

Azrael, the angel of death, is viewed through history as the bringer of doom, an angel to be feared. Not many understand that he does not interfere with death, he merely helps people cross over, guiding them to heaven, or, in some cases, to hell. An angel associated with death is not usually an angel we see as good and kind, but perhaps spending eternity with all too human souls gave Azrael some humanity of his own, because he fought on the side of Earth during the war of the heavens.

Other archangels have similar stories, Sandolphon, the angel of music was originally a prophet. Elijah was ascended to the heavens by God, like his brother Metatron, who led a human life as Enoch, a scribe in both human and angel life, transcribing the Book of Life and submitting orders to Gabriel and Sammael. Although, as we know, they don't always follow tradition. The only two archangels whose names don't end in '-el', they are known as the two closest to God, and we would have assumed them to be the most likely archangels to acknowledge and follow His orders. So, working on that assumption, are we to take that as proof that this war of the heavens was something God wanted, or even allowed, to happen? I find that hard to believe. More likely that the angels accepted what a lot of people accepted a long time ago. God wasn't around, or if He was, then the war wasn't something of great importance to Him.

As a man of faith, I initially found it harder to believe than say, an atheist would, but eventually, we knew. We just knew. God didn't care whether he lived or died. But that's not the focus of today's lecture. Or at least, not completely.

Today's lecture is about a branch of angels that surround us every day, and are perhaps the most portrayed in the media today. Guardian angels are with us all, whether we believe it or not.

Guardian angels may not always be welcome, but they are always there, and they genuinely love their charges, regarding their lives as higher than their own. They give us guidance in times of trouble, give us the strength to carry on in an otherwise impossible situation, and when our lives are in danger, they risk their own to save us.

Everyone has a guardian angel, but some guardian angels have hundreds of charges, and have to help them all equally. However some rare angels have only one charge, when the person is deemed important enough to have permanent protection. One such angel is the angel Castiel.

Castiel, an angel of Thursday, he is also the angel in charge of new changes and travel. For a man whose live was comprised almost entirely of change and travel, he was a fitting angel chosen to watch over him from birth.

Over the next month, I won't be teaching you at all. Instead taking the lectures will be someone very important. James Novak was a vessel for the angel Castiel, and is the most qualified source we know of to talk about what it's like being that entwined with what is essentially a living soul, and the important and arduous task of protecting one man. Dean Winchester.

Castiel lived for Dean and ultimately died for him, and the only person who can tell that story is the one outside influence that was there all through it. A vessel for the most important angel in this whole damn war.'

Sam Wesson looks up from his notes, brushing long hair out of hazel eyes.

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><p>Assorted students slump in their seats, the early Monday lecture never their favourite. Caleb Gallagher watches the professor stand and talk at the front, about demons and werewolves and vampires and lesser known evils, the tulpas and shtrigas and chupacabras roaming the world for thousands of years. And the hunters fighting them, men and women who give up their lives and families to save the rest of us, their names known to all, written in history books. Harvelle. Singer. Murphy. And Winchester, the most famous of all. Their gospel speaks a million more words than pictures ever could, the stories being about more than fighting monsters, it speaks about family, and life and love and humanity. The three men who were wrapped up in the destiny of the entire world fought harder for their humanity than in any story Caleb's ever heard.<p>

For two years he listens to tales of evil creatures, things that kill and maim and torture and mutilate for no reason other than it's their nature. He learns about demons, and discovers that their nature _is_ evil, that they destroys lives and homes and families for fun and he wonders how in the world God lets such evil exist.

And then today, Professor Wesson walks into the room, wearing his usual uniform of jeans, biker boots and plaid button up shirt, his hair falling in his eyes, just like every other day. But somehow, he looks different. There's a lightness to his step that had previously been absent, his tread heavy on a normal day. He's followed by another man, who takes a seat by the podium. He stares at the ground, at his battered and worn Chuck Taylors, and Caleb pays attention, because this man positively _glows_. Not in a healthy way, like, eating all his vitamins glowing, but glowing nevertheless, like he's been filled up with unearthly light and drained, leaving a speck of the supernatural incandescence behind. He may dress in holey jeans and an ancient looking band shirt, a couple of days of stubble on his face, but next to the world weary college professor retrieving notes from his briefcase, he looks like the happiest man in the world. Caleb wonders why.

And then Wesson starts talking, his voice holding just a hint of a southern accent, the syllables carrying through the room as he talks of a new supernatural creature, the first creature he's talked of that isn't evil (or at least, not wholly evil, he thinks wryly, remembering the lecture about Anansi three months ago), talking about the one thing that Caleb always has trouble believing in. In the dark it's easy to believe in evil, but even in the light of day, angels seem like a made up thing, an impossible white knight to banish all fears. Angels walk hand in hand with religion, and Caleb knows that there was a war between heaven and hell, he knows that angels came to earth, but he still doesn't grasp the concept of angels and how they're good and holy and above all _pure_.

But now, standing in front of him, the glowing dude stands up, and Caleb finally understands, that last elusive, hiding down the back of the sofa piece of the angelic puzzle slots into place and he _understands_. He realises that angels aren't just angels. They can be human too, their soul leaving footprints (Grace-prints?) behind in the people they possess (and something in him makes him wonder if angels can really be all that holy and righteous when they use bodies like demons, but at least demons don't burn the bodies up with angelic energy), but they're part human, part something else-something good, and something hollow-empty like the vessels they inhabit, like pouring white light from a jug and leaving only sediment, the need to obey the Word of their Father.

The guy, James Novak, his mind recalls, stands at the front, looking uncomfortable behind a podium, glancing at the door. Maybe wondering if it's too late to make a run for it? He looks at Wesson, his blue eyes (so blue, Caleb realises, that he can see the sapphire hue from his seat at the back of the hall) uncertain, filling, drowning, bursting with nerves and I-don't-want-to-be-here-why-are-you-making-me-be-here. Wesson smiles, the same genuine smile he uses when someone guesses correctly, or does well in a pop quiz. A real smile, not like the fake ones he recognises only because Caleb's fake smiled at people for years, and knows a fake when he sees one, damn it! But Wesson seems fake sometimes, looks like he's uncomfortable with his own name, taking a second too long to look up when someone calls him Professor Wesson. Maybe he's not really a Wesson. Maybe he used to be someone else. Caleb knows a lot about being someone else too.

But the lecture isn't about Caleb, hell, it's not about Wesson, either, it's about Novak, so Caleb blinks and rakes his fingers through his bangs, pushing them out of his face, focusing in on nuances, like the way Novak nervously taps his foot on the floor, scratches the back of his neck as he surveys the fifty plus college kids on the room that chose to study Demonology 101 or whatever. He wonders what their reasons were. He knows his.

But now Novak's talking, and he seems to have something important to say, so Caleb stops thinking and starts listening.

He's not expecting what comes out in the next hour of his life. He won't regret it, and he'll never forget it. It may be the most important thing he ever learns.

* * *

><p>Jimmy clears his throat for what seems like the thousandth time (it's actually the seventh, the anal part of him whispers), looking out at his so called audience, half of which seems to be asleep, and the other half on the verge of leaving, depending on what he has to say.<p>

He doesn't really know why he's here, why he felt the need to say a resounding 'Yes' to one of his oldest friends. Except he does. He knows that for the last three years he's felt a pit inside himself. The piece of his soul which used to burn the brightest is now the blackest part of him. But the weirdest thing, the thing that makes him wonder how much of him had become Castiel and how much had stayed Jimmy and how much they bled into each other's souls is that it hurts because Castiel was ripped from him, but someone else was ripped from Castiel, and now Jimmy has two holes in him. He wonders if they'll ask him about that, at the end, when he's told his story. He wonders if they'll ask him about the Winchesters.

He takes a final, pleading look at Sam Wesson, who smiles and gestures for him to start, so he does.

'I once told someone being possessed by an angel was like being strapped to a comet. Not as accurate as I thought. Being an angel's vessel is like becoming part of the comet itself. Before Castiel found me, I lived in a two up, two down house in the suburbs with a wife and a daughter. I sold ad space. Then Castiel came, and my life seemed insignificant. For three years I travelled with Castiel. It sounds like he's been travelling with me, but I'm just the car he used for the journey. His journey. I had no choice. I was along for the ride, whether I wanted to or not.

'So, I guess that's why I'm here today. Your professor wants me to talk about angels and being a vessel for one, and what that entails. So, I'll start at the beginning of my journey with Castiel, then answer any questions you have at the end, OK?'

Silence as they all watch him. No one's left yet, which must be a good sign, but some still look asleep. One boy, sitting at the back seems to be paying attention though, his young face hidden by a fringe of black hair. A silver bar pierces one eyebrow, hovering above dark, almost black eyes as they watch him, seldom blinking. He's the most attentive one in the room, even more, he suspects, than Sam, who has heard this story before and is doubtless elsewhere in his imagination.

'So, I guess my story begins on August 11th 2007, at home...

_I'm sleeping in the chair in front of the TV, having fallen asleep there. I know I shouldn't have, but I was feeling more lethargic than usual lately, and I don't know why. I haven't been working longer hours than usual. I guess maybe I've been waking up a little earlier than usual, but surely that wouldn't cause it. I don't know. The TV mumbles away to itself, some age old program that they only put on at the crack of stupid O'clock, a war documentary maybe. I heave myself out of the chair and head over to the crackly old set, intending to hit the off button and retire to my bed for what little of the night left there is. I reach the set when it happens. The image flickers suddenly, giving in to the inevitable static created by the ancient TV. A wild buzzing fills the air, almost like insect wings, and I hear delicate fluttering mixed in with that, like feathers. A scaly sound completes the raucousness of it all, and I imagine dragons flying over the house, opening their mouths to breathe fire down the chimney and turn us all to ash (I know dragons don't exist, but my mind does funny things when it's tired, creating creatures out of the shadows in the creaky old house I lived in as a child, imagining monsters out of the clothes in a heap on the chair in the corner of my childhood room). The sound increases in volume and intensity and I put my hands to my ears, trying to fight the noise off. It's drilling straight into my skull and the TV flickers even more, the image jumping up and down, epileptic snow. I fall to my knees as the sounds bounces around my brain in such a way that I think of speech, and whatever the wings are saying to me, it's important. I get a sense of urgency and need wrapping itself around me, but I don't know what it wants. If I did, I would say yes in a heartbeat, say anything it wants, just to get this cacophony of flight out of my head. As sudden as it had arrived, it's gone, and I lift my head tentatively. I feel my ears should be leaking blood, scarlet liquid running from my ear drums, my nostrils, escaping from under my eyelids, but nothing. It is as if the sound and the pain it brought had never existed. I turn the TV off for real and go to bed, determined to forget it. If it were like it never existed to the world, then it never existed for me as well. I tell myself that, but still my thoughts soar through the air with birds and insects and dragons, and a curious man, his stark black wings protruding from his shoulder blades as ebony locks fall down past his waist. If insects buzz when they fly, and birds glide through the air on a soft feathery sound and dragons roar with scaly noise, then the winged man flies as all three, his androgynous features happy when he hurtles through the air on wings made of black light, almost shadow but not quite._

_I wake, not knowing what the dream meant, but knowing that I can't simply forget. So I don't. I remember. And slowly, over the next year, I notice other things. It evolves from simple static. He talks to me, the winged man. His name is Castiel, and he's an angel of the Lord. He needs me, for an upcoming war. I ask him about the war, who it's against, why it has to be me, but he doesn't speak to me, only at me. Over the months, I find strange things starting to happen. Cas talks to me, tells me that I'll heal any wound. When my wife walks in on me, I'm sticking my hand in a pot of boiling water. The ultimate test of faith. She shrieks, and I pull my hand out. It may not burn, but it's uncomfortable as hell. My hand is pink, but not blistered. Looks like I pass the test. To Castiel anyway. My wife thinks I'm nuts. Therapy follows, meetings, endless meeting with shrink after shrink after shrink. I'm given prescriptions for pills, because apparently I'm crazy. Even my wife, who believes in God, and angels, just like me, refuses to believe that they're talking to me._

_She tells me to take the pills. I refuse, I'm not sick. She insists, so I try to make her see. 'I know this is hard to understand, but he chose me.'_

_Tears are streaming down her face, and it hurts me, knowing that I'm causing her pain, but she has to understand that I'm not crazy._

_Castiel, she says. The angel. I can hear the scorn in her voice, and my heart breaks a little more. Then she gives me an ultimatum. I take the pills, or she takes our daughter and leaves. I can't face either._

_Ten minutes later, I'm outside in the dark, my trench-coat shielding me from the wind. I stare up at the heavens, a last resort. I don't want to leave my family, but if this is what it takes to keep them safe..._

_The date is September 17__th__, 2008. I say yes for the first time._

Jimmy pauses in his lecture momentarily to scan the room. The dark haired boy at the back is wide awake, staring, mouth agape slightly. Everyone else is at least awake and in varying degrees of paying attention. A girl near the front is mesmerized, her eyes slightly glazed as she watches him. Her green irises glisten with tears, and he thinks if he's reached that one girl in some way, no matter how small, his story is told. But he's nowhere near finished, so he takes a sip from his water bottle and continues.

_Being possessed, by an angel, no less, is the single greatest, and most painful experience of my life so far. It's like having light pour into you, through your mouth and eyes. It's like absorbing heaven through every pore in my skin. It's like sinking into a pool of righteousness and drowning in everything that's right with the world. _

_But drowning is still drowning, no matter what you drown in. Honey or vinegar, but burn your lungs as you fight to keep breathing, keep your head above the water. I'm choking on it, the purity of it all. Castiel is forcing himself down my throat, and it _hurts_, and I regret saying that one syllable more than I've ever regretted anything. Almost. And yet, I find myself wondering what took me so long._

_At the same rate the Grace fills me up, I can feel my control leeching away as I turn into a celestial puppet, God himself tugging on my strings. Is this what I've signed up to? I think. Being a hand puppet, not able to walk or talk for myself? As the light fades on the outside, inside I'm burning, my soul engulfed in flames that burn so hot I blister. Inside I'm freezing, my being turning to ice and shattering, leaving only room for Castiel. I'm not Jimmy, not any more. Now I am Castiel, and Castiel is me, entwined deeper than any soul mates could ever dream to be._

_Which is why, when Castiel tells my daughter he's not her father, he speaks only the truth, using the words of a categorical lie._

The hour is far from over when Jimmy stops speaking, but he's done for today. He's emotionally reliving the events of over six years ago, the events that brought him kicking and screaming into the biggest war the world has ever known, and he's drained, can't physically continue, won't continue, because if he talks about what happened next now, then he won't stop talking, and that's another talk for another day. Every single person in the room is paying him their absolute attention now. The boy at the back looks close to tears, and the girl at the front is snuffling into a tissue, the tears of earlier now rolling freely down her face.

Jimmy might feel bad about that, if the war hadn't taken all his guilt, used it up until there was nothing left.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam arrives home after his lecture, his apartment spacious but minimalistic. Years of hunting have taught him that possessions are simply that. Objects that we have need of or desire. Sam neither has need of, nor desires a lot of things. Only one thing. He drops his briefcase by the door of his bedroom, the only bedroom and shucks his jacket off, dropping it on the bed next to a sleeping figure before sitting on the edge. The movement wakes the figure up, and he rolls over to face Sam. A hand snakes up to caress his face as a sleepy voice enquires to his mood.

'Bad day?' he asks, his eyes alert but his voice several seconds away from normal.  
>'Not sure yet,' he replies, running his hand through his hair, pushing hindering bangs out of his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he doesn't want to hide who he is. Not even to the man who's seen it all, from his soaring highs to his deepest lows, has seen his eyes for a long time. He doesn't care to think about how long. Almost longer than it's been since he's seen his brother's face. His lover sits up, brushing a kiss to his lips before stretching, cat like. He slinks out of the bed with a cursory wave of his hand to the shower. Sam calls after him, something about dinner and a beer, and he nods, snapping his fingers as a robe falls into his hand and the boxers he was previously wearing vanish, just as the bathroom door closes. Sam doesn't mind. He's too tired to care.<p>

Fifteen minutes later he's in the kitchen, slicing vegetables as chicken cooks in the pan next to him. A half drunk beer sits next to him, another unopened next to it, beads of condensation running down the side. His mind flashes back to the lecture today. Jimmy had talked openly and honestly about what it was like being a vessel, and Sam realised that all the years he'd spent, practically living with an angel, (and actually living with one for three years after...

After that, he thinks, not even being able to think about the event that pushed him from hunting into the arms of an angel, the life of an angel, the love of an angel) he'd know a little more about what it's like being a vessel.

He throws a handful of mushrooms into the pan, followed by a sauce of some kind. He doesn't look at the label, he's not fussy, and Gabriel's always so hungry when he wakes up he'll eat anything.

He never expected angels to be nocturnal. Not that they need to sleep at all, but Gabriel hasn't been an angel for a long time, and when Castiel Fell, he used to sleep through the day. He's never wondered about that before. Jimmy was making him realise all sorts of things, he thought.

Gabriel appears in the doorway, pulling a loose shirt on over his bare chest. Sam thinks it's his own shirt, but he can't be sure. Gabriel's definitely wearing his own jeans though. Sam recognises the faded denim pants, the hole in the knee that's been there longer than Sam's lived in this apartment. The material creases near the bottom, falling in folds round his bare feet. His hair is soft, clearly just washed, and Sam feels an urge to run his hands through it. Instead he picks up the knife and continues chopping, throwing another handful of vegetables into the pot before sliding the still cold beer over to Gabriel.

'So, ready to tell me about your maybe not so bad day yet?' he asks, sitting on one of the barstool style seats around the table and taking a pull from the bottle.  
>Sam shrugs. 'I don't know what it is yet. All I know is that it's all happening again tomorrow.'<p>

Caleb collapses in his apartment building, falling backwards onto the sofa as he opens a bottle of water. He feels emotionally drained from the lecture today. Thoughts of angels and vessels and 'yes's run through his exhausted mind while he sips from his water, processing everything he found out today. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't moved by Jimmy Novak's simple, beautiful testament of losing everything but gaining a fantastically pure perspective of the world. His monologue concerning Castiel telling his daughter the truth within a lie had almost brought him to tears.

Idly scratching the tattoo on his forearm, he slides his feet onto the magazine covered coffee table in front of him and tips his head back, intending to catch a few hours of sleep before his next lecture.

He knows that he's gonna have to prepare for tomorrow, because if it's anything like today was, he's gonna need more than an hour and a half of sleep plus two and a bit joints (the last shared with his friend Markus on the way to class) to prepare for the histrionic barrage he would face tomorrow. And he was damned if he would be caught unawares like that again.

Caleb is surprised when he walks into the lecture theatre the next morning, a half full bottle of coke in his hand, when he sees Jimmy already in the lecture theatre, but sitting in one of the seats, not standing at the front. At the front is Professor Wesson, standing in his normal space, but what Caleb notices, really notices, is that for the first time since he started taking the class, he can see Wesson's eyes. His too long bangs are pushed back behind his ears and he realises that his eyes aren't a dark, almost black pool, but actually hazel, with flecks of green and gold and bronze.  
>Wesson notices him staring, and he looks away, cheeks tinged pink as he slides into a seat on the front row next to Novak and flips open the book he's reading, inserting his iPod earphones in.<p>

He's lost in _Memoirs Of An Apocalypse_, the posthumous autobiography of Dean Winchester. He's known the world over as the hero of the apocalypse, the one who never said 'Yes', the one who kept fighting, side by side with his brother. Caleb thinks there are worse things than being Dean Winchester. He flicks through the photo section, all the photos chosen by his brother Sam, who suddenly disappears from his brother's side when Dean's about twenty four. There are pictures going up the years of Dean though, from a picture of him and his mother, father and brother (the only photo saved from the fire that claimed his mother's life), going through photos of various birthday parties (one when he was three, smeared with cake, one where he was eleven, a huge box of cassette tapes next to him as he roots through them) through to when he was older, shots of him sitting on the Impala next to his now gangly little brother, all mixed in with candid shots, taken by his brother, Caleb assumes. Later on in the book is a group shot of people, no one he recognises, apart from...

He sneaks a look at the man sitting next to him, oblivious to everything, apparently. It's definitely him. He's dressed differently, and in his hands there's a gun, but apart from that, he looks almost exactly the same. He has the same look in his eye, and Caleb can feel the angel's Grace pulsing off the page. The only woman in the shot looks young, too young to be fighting with this group of battle hardened and scarred soldiers. There are four others in the photograph, no Winchesters, but there's a man in a wheelchair, who he recognises from a few earlier photos. He flips back a couple of pages to learn the man's name is Bobby Singer. Yet another casualty of the war. The sign in the background of the photo proclaims the location as Camp Chitaqua. The place where it all went down. Flicking over a couple of pages, he flips past another photo. Dean has returned in this one, accompanied by Jimmy (or Castiel, he assumes. The man has an air of heaven about him, unlike the last picture, and the Grace hits him like an eighteen wheeler.) Bobby's back as well, and a man in the background, his face obscured by shadows. All Caleb can tell is that he's tall, much taller than Castiel and Dean. The men are joined by three women, two look like mother and daughter, Caleb thinks. The last woman, the young blonde from the Camp Chitaqua photo, has her arm slung around Dean's shoulders and another arm around Cas'. The two pictures are different, but the same. Different place, different people, but the same look of...

Despondance. On each and every face in the two photos. At least on the Camp Chitaqua one they're smiling, trying to hide it, the other photo looks like they've abandoned all hope. Like they don't care if tomorrow never comes.

Caleb thinks maybe it doesn't for some of them. The two women and the taller man don't appear in photos again, and he doesn't see the guy in any of the other photos.  
>The penultimate photograph is a group of three people, smiling and laughing in a bar somewhere. They all have a beer, and Dean's about to down a shot. The blonde woman from the other two photos grasps a cigarette lazily in one hand, and Jimmy (or Castiel) is taking a pull from his beer bottle. It's a candid shot, taken from across the bar, so they're wreathed in smoke from the other patrons, but it's the happiest photo he's seen of older Dean, and the despondence in their eyes is gone, or at least hidden by the alcohol.<p>

The last photo in the book is one of a grave. Well, he corrects himself, a pair of gravestones. Plaques really, attached to a sandstone wall somewhere. One is devoid of all text, a single feather carved into the bronze. The other merely says Winchester. He doesn't know which one though. John, Mary, Dean. He hasn't finished the book. He knows it's not Sam though. It can't be Sam. Because Sam published the book, six months ago. He flips back to where his bookmark held the page for him and started reading.

_Meeting Cas. That was a hell of a wakeup call. A real eleven on the what-the-effing-crap scale of one to ten. I mean, freaking ANGELS. What the hell, man?  
>Bobby says that only angels can raise someone from hell, but it's not like he's never been wrong before. Something about Cas just made me, I dunno, uneasy. Maybe it was the fact that he was so matter-of-fact about possessing the tax accountant. Or maybe it was the fact that I shot that bastard at least half a dozen times and he didn't flinch. Maybe it was even the fact that he freaking tapped Bobby on the forehead and he dropped like he'd been snipered.<em>

_Or maybe, just maybe it's the fact that he claims to be a FUCKING ANGEL OF THE LORD. AND he 'has work for me'._

_I thought when I got out of hell, I might have finally caught a break. But apparently now that I've been Hell's bitch, it's time for me to be Heaven's. Sometimes I hate my life._

He only gets a few paragraphs in when the class around him quietens and he glances up at Wesson, ready to being the lecture. He pulls his headphones out and flips the book closed, pushing it to one side to make room for his notebook. He makes notes on autopilot, barely listening to Wesson's lecture on angel hierarchies, Jimmy filling in the gaps from his seat on the front row when Wesson seems to stumble over something or other. He's sure the lecture is very interesting, but he's got the notes, and he switched his Dictaphone on, like always, so he has the lecture sorted, but his concentration is miles away.

It's in the year 1983, Lawrence, Kansas. November 2nd.  
>He knows what happens there. He knows why it happens. He can understand the logistics of it all, how it happens. Yet, he can't comprehend it. It's like trying to wrap his brain around the sheer size of the universe.<p>

So he takes a step back, and lays it all out in front of him. His mind is like a set of blue-print layers, each one peeling back with a storyboard, showing each step in front of him. He knows the facts, and he pieces it together so it plays like a movie.

He knows that Mary hears baby Sam wake up and start fussing.

As soon as Mary enters the room, she's dead.

He knows that John hears her scream.

He knows that John watches her burn while Sam cries.

And he knows that John, Sam and Dean get out alive.

The whole world knows that version. The whole world read that version in the newspapers, and in the books and the biographies. One network had a made for TV movie (it won awards). But not a lot of people know the real version.

Because the real version isn't pretty, and it won't win Oscars, or book awards. _Memoirs of an Apocalypse_ was published independently (by his brother) and sold twenty thousand copies worldwide.

An independent company made a film (it won nothing). But it told the real story. It ended messily, but it ended real. There is no happy ending in real life.

Caleb knows the real version. He knows about the demon blood. He knows about Azazel, and he knows what happened as a result of the blood, twenty years later.

He knows that Hollywood told people that Dean died a hero, that he took down as many demon sonuvabitches as he could (after sleeping with the 'cute female angel'). But he also knows that what really happened wasn't anywhere near as glamorous.

He knows that Dean died fighting heaven, that after all the false promises and temptations they offered him, angels weren't as holy as people thought. That if they couldn't have Dean on their side, they would rather kill him, so the other side couldn't have him. Dean spent his life thinking that things were black and white. As soon as he learnt about all the shades of grey, the grey killed him.

He knows that Dean fought with an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. He wonders how that works. He imagines that the shoulders wouldn't get on very well.  
>Blinking a few times, he tunes back in to the lecture for a second, scribbling <em>Ask Jimmy about demon<em> in the margin of his notebook. He checks his watch idly and blinks again, amazed that almost the full hour has passed, and Wesson is winding his lecture up. Flicking back through the lecture to the title, he finds that it was on basic angel lore, the hierarchies and why angels had different days they watched over, stuff like that. People around him are packing up to get to their next lecture, and he glances at the door to see Jimmy disappearing out of it.

Caleb grabs his jacket and bag, shoving his Dictaphone and notebook in the front pocket and reaches the door before being collared by Wesson. He looks at Caleb, almost as if questioning his hurry. Taking a hold of his elbow, he pulls Caleb gently in front of his desk and sits behind it, shuffling through papers until he pulls one out, presumably Caleb's paper from last semester, an A scribbled on it in red pen.  
>'Take a look at this,' he tells Caleb, who takes the paper and looks at him questioningly.<p>

'Is there something wrong with my paper, sir?' he asks, just the respectful side of insolent.

'No, no. And therein lies the problem. This is your second year in this class, yes?'  
>Caleb nods, unsure where the conversation is heading.<p>

'Then where did you get the idea to write a paper on a topic only covered in the third year of study?'

'I assumed the paper was assigned so we could research independently, not using our notes from the class? Was I wrong?'

'Uh, not at all, I was just... surprised. I thought maybe-'

'You thought maybe since I don't pay attention in class, I'd half-ass a paper?'

Wesson shrugs one shoulder up and down, smiling lopsidedly. It's the sort of smile that, if Caleb were gay, or a chick, he'd be falling over himself to hook up with him.  
>'Is that all, sir?' he asks, hoping he can still catch up to Jimmy.<p>

Wesson nods, turning his attention back to the sheets of paper littering his desk, flicking through a thick textbook as he marks something. 'Remember your paper is due in next week!' he calls after the young student as he escapes out the door.

Caleb catches up to Jimmy just outside of the campus, as he slides onto a bike, a helmet in one hand. It's a nice bike, a Ducati of some sort, and Caleb finds himself momentarily distracted before he jogs down the street towards the bike, calling Jimmy's name, or more specifically, Mr Novak.

Jimmy looks over and frowns, trying to place the face. A look of recognition dawns. 'You were in the lecture yesterday. You were the only one paying attention at the start.'

Caleb nods. 'Your lecture really moved me. I've never heard anyone talk like that. Your story is amazing, what little I heard.'

Jimmy holds out a hand to shake. 'If I can touch only one person with my story, I feel it's all been worth it.'

Caleb shakes it, oddly nervous. 'I was uh, wondering if I could ask you some questions. For my paper.'

Jimmy smiles, the first genuine one Caleb's seen on him. 'Of course. What did you want to know?'

'Well,' Caleb starts walking, falling in step with Jimmy, who has climbed off the bike and is gripping the helmet lightly in one hand. 'I was curious about Castiel's relationship with Dean Winchester. And I was wondering about the demon that fought with you, against hell. Why did Castiel decide to fight with Dean instead of with heaven?'

Jimmy chuckled, holding up a hand. 'Please, one question at a time. How long do you have before your next class?'

'A couple days, actually. I get my weekend on Tuesday and Wednesday, so that was my last class until Thursday. Long story?'

'Story of a lifetime. You want to get coffee or something? I have nowhere to be right now.'

'Sure' Caleb agrees, leading him to a small coffee stall that he passes on the way to college every day, and they grab two coffees to go. It's summer in New York City, and they wander through the streets, and Jimmy talks, telling Caleb the story of Dean Winchester...


	3. Chapter 3

The first time I meet Dean Winchester, he tries to kill me. Well, he tries to kill Castiel, which amounts to the same thing.

After allowing Castiel to use my body, we fly to Pontiac, Illinois, landing noiselessly outside a dilapidated old barn, with steel sheeting covering a thin iron frame. Inside, we sense devils traps, and countless other wards and sigils designed to keep everything supernatural out. But apparently they hadn't counted on angels. Cas takes an unnecessary breath (with my lungs) and closes his eyes. The sheeting starts rattling in the wind that's been conjured up, seemingly out of thin air, and he walks forward slowly, raising a hand and throwing the doors to the barn open.  
>It's an odd sensation, feeling my body move and knowing that I have no control over it. I suspect it'll get easier over time. As we enter the run down building, the light bulbs over our heads shatter, and spit sparks and broken glass at us. I notice that we make an effort to step in as many anti demon sigils as we can while we approach two men, armed with shotguns as they stand at the back of the barn, tensed for attack. I know immediately who we're here to talk to. The shorter man is also the older of the pair, and looks like he's been fighting a war for some time now. There's a sense of world weariness floating off him, and I feel a twinge of... something. Already my emotions are floating away, and I'm not sure why. It's like the angel is buffering them, making them harder to reach. I guess angels don't need emotions. Or family either, I think bitterly, recalling the way Castiel just walked away from my daughter.<p>

_*Just because I walked away from your daughter doesn't mean I don't find family more important than anything*_

I start as a voice sounds inside my (our) head. It's a deep voice, gravelly, but not unlike mine.

_*You sound...*_I pause, thinking.

_*Yes?*_

*Not unlike me*

I finish.

_*I have a true voice, the one you heard when you allowed me to use you as a vessel. While I inhabit your body, I use your voice*_

*Why is it so much deeper than my normal voice?*

*Your vocal chords aren't used to containing my Grace. They're strained.*

*So, will it go back to normal soon?*

*I doubt it. Humans don't adjust to this.*

He's silent after this, as we continue walking towards the two men. The younger one's face is contorted in a snarl, his Nile green eyes burning with fear, and absolution. Hell rolls off him in waves, that sense of burning and hatred and tortured souls. Castiel knows what he's done in hell, and I do too. Neither of us blame him. He did what he had to, to survive. It doesn't make it forgivable. Merely understandable.  
>Almost as if on cue, they both raise their guns and shoot, rock salt flying towards us. I feel it pelting against me, leaving ragged holes in my clothing, but it doesn't hurt. It's just uncomfortable. Both men stop shooting, and the younger man (Dean Winchester, Castiel tells me) picks up a knife. 'Who are you?' he asks, and Castiel speaks with my mouth. Something else to get used to.<p>

'I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.'

He snorts, flipping the knife in his hand to give a more stable grip. 'Yeah. Thanks for that.' He brings his arm up and sinks the knife into our chest, perilously close to my heart. Again, no pain, just an uncomfortable feeling. I can't really describe it, but if I had to, it's a little like having a stone in my shoe, only, y'know, by my heart. We pull the knife out and drop it to the floor. It hits with a clang and some of the anger in Dean's eyes deflates, the fear seeping further into him. Behind me, I hear movement, and Castiel swings round, disarming the other man and touching two fingers to his forehead. He collapses in a heap, and we turn back round to face Dean.

'We need to talk, Dean. Alone.'

Dean says nothing, just looks at his friend, crumpled on the ground. We take a step to the side so he can reassure himself that we didn't hurt the older hunter. Dean checks his pulse, finds it, and angles his face up to glare.

'Your friend's alive,' we say, and Dean merely snorts again.

'Who are you?' Dean repeats, retreating from us to a safe distance. Smart man.  
>'Castiel,' we answer, and I can feel Castiel's confusion. Looks like angels have feelings after all.<p>

'Yeah, I figured that much,' Dean bites back. 'I mean _what_ are you?'  
>'I'm an angel of the Lord,' we reply.<p>

'Get the hell out of here, there's no such thing.' Dean snaps, but he doesn't look nearly as sure as he did five seconds ago. We decide to show him, and lightning flashes over head as I feel something bursting out of my shoulder blades.

_Wings.._. I marvel, and watch the colour drain from Dean's face. Only slightly, because he's pale as death anyway, has been since he was pulled out of the pit, Castiel tells me. It makes sense, Hell would affect us all, if it's like the images I see in Castiel's head, flashes of red and pain.

Suddenly, Dean's eyes fill with anger again, and he takes a step forward. 'Some angel you are, you burned out that poor woman's eyes!'

I blink (figuratively, of course) in surprise. _*Castiel?*_

'I warned her not to spy on my true form,' he says to both of us. 'It can be... overwhelming, to humans, and so can my real voice. But you already knew that.'  
>'You mean the gas station and the motel. That was you talking?' We nod. 'Buddy, next time, lower the volume.'<p>

'That was my mistake,' we say, managing to sound almost apologetic. 'Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you were one of them. I was wrong.'

'And what 'visage' are you in now, huh?' Dean spits, looking disgusted. 'What, holy tax accountant?'

I bristle. My clothes are not that bad. Castiel merely keeps his level tone. 'This?' He gestures at my trench coat. 'This is a vessel.'

'You're possessing some poor bastard?' Again, I'm offended. _*I am IN here too*_ I think, although I'm not sure who I'm directing it at. Dean can't hear me, and if Castiel's listening, he's ignoring it, defending me to Dean. I think.  
>'He's a devout man. He actually prayed for this,'<p>

_*Well, not exactly what I had in mind when I prayed to keep my family safe...*_I quip bitterly, but he ignores me again.

'Well, I ain't buyin' what you're sellin', so who are you really?'

_*My God, he's not winning any prizes for intelligence here. Thank God he's pretty*_I think blithely, quoting an ancient episode of Friends. I feel Castiel, almost shuffle, I suppose would be the right word, uncomfortably.

'I told you,' he answers Dean's question, tilting our head slightly and frowning.  
>'Right,' snorts Dean. 'And why would an 'angel',' (I can hear the quotation marks dripping off his tongue) 'rescue me from Hell?'<p>

'Good things do happen, Dean,' we answer, picking up on the underlying despair and self loathing in his voice. What the hell happened to him to make him like this? Not Hell, or at least not entirely.

'Not in my experience,' he almost sighs, and the world weariness I felt form the old hunter assaults me again, only this time it takes me by surprise. So tired for one so young.

'What's the matter, Dean?' Castiel asks, as we regard him. Then he must realise something, because he answers his own question. 'You don't think you deserve to be saved.'

'Why'd you do it?' he asks, ignoring the question and answer entirely. _*You know, I'd been wondering that myself*_I ponder, waiting for Castiel's answer.

'Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.'

Dean's mouth gapes a little at that, but before he can say anything, his friend groans lightly, and Dean swings his head round to check on him. We take this opportunity to exit stage right.

Hell. Flashes of red and orange and purple, blood and fire and bruises. We flex our wings and a sense of comforting shadow falls over the scene, blanketing the pain with our coal feathers.

Dean sleeps soundly, free of nightmares.

We stand in Bobby Singer's house, in the kitchen, watching a much younger looking Dean sleep. When we arrived his face was contorted into a snarl of fear and pure, unbridled rage. We reached deep into his soul and chased the last vestiges of Hell from him and he sleeps peacefully, childlike in his innocence.

_*How long have you been keeping the nightmares at bay?*_I ask, breaking the unnatural silence of Dakota at dawn.

Castiel doesn't reply for a few seconds, watching his young charge's chest rise and fall steadily.

_*All his life*_

For the last three days, Castiel has allowed me glimpses, snapshots of his life before I was his vessel. I'm the first vessel he has had in two and a half millennia, and it shows. All the time we learn new things about each other. At first the things he showed me were involuntary, flashing memories attributed to adjusting to me, the vessel. As the days pass he gets stronger, better at hiding these images, but after our conversation in the kitchen, he opens the floodgates, so to speak, and I learn more about the inescapable bond that links him with the scarred and beaten hunter.  
>I watch through angel's eyes as Dean is brought into the world, crying and wailing, but all I see is the innocence floating off him, breaking through the dark taint of his mother's deal with the devil. I watch tears run down John Winchester's face as he hold his son, and I feel Castiel's crushing grief as he witnesses John losing his family over the next twenty two years.<p>

In 1983 he gains another son, and Dean gains a brother, someone to boss around, but also someone he is to protect, at all costs. Someone he would (and does) die for.  
>In the same year, John Winchester loses his wife, and Dean loses his mother, his father, and any chance of a normal life.<p>

Over the next nineteen years Dean Winchester learns that family is everything, and there is no excuse for failure. He grows into a soldier, his loyalty to his father unwavering and immortal. He reminds me of Michael. The Winchester family are the direct descendants of Cain and Abel, and it shows. As he watches Dean grow into Castiel's own older brother, he watches Sam grow into Michael's favourite brother. Lucifer is written in Sam's soul in blood and black ink, and the darkness seeps through him, unyielding as the demon blood dripping through his veins.

When Dean is four years old, he has his first nightmare. Castiel finds him as he tosses and turns in the Impala's backseat, Sam asleep in John's arms as he sits awake, unable to sleep. Like Dean, if he closes his eyes, he'll dream of Mary.  
>Like smoothing down the cowlick on four year old Dean's head, Castiel reaches out a hand and smoothes down the nightmare, quieting the shrieking and cooling the flames that lick at his heels as he races out of the house, his baby brother cradled in his too young, too small hands. It's the first time Dean has a nightmare, but not the last.<p>

Over the next sixteen years, Castiel watches him sleep, (because Angels don't have to sleep, so he has to pass the time somehow, and what better way than ensuring his charge a monster free night. He fights them in the daylight, why should the crevices of his mind worsen the already ever-present insomnia, the hunter's disease?) calming any ugly beast that rears his head. As he grows older, so do his dreams, fuelled by the hunts he deals with on a near daily basis. He still dreams of Mary, and the demon that stole her away, but the figure on the ceiling is interchangeable, flipping from Sam to John to Mary to Cassie (Dean's first serious girlfriend) to Lisa (the one he still holds in his heart, even now) back to Sam. Every night, it always leads back to Sam. Sam leaving, Sam not being there anymore, Sam being _gone._ It terrifies Dean more than he wants to admit, and so he wrestles the burden of being big brother in his dreams. Castiel watches and waits for the nightmare to surface like he knows it will (it always does), and every time it does, he's ready, unfolding his still white wings (it takes a special kind of nightmare for them to darken to onyx) and unsheathing his fiery sword, battling the blackness of Dean's soul with pure light.  
>In 2003, Sam leaves for college, and John loses his first son, and Dean loses everything. Every nightmare he's ever had about Sam has come true, and the first night he doesn't sleep in the same room as Sam for twenty years, he has the worst nightmare Castiel's ever seen in his human. It takes all his strength, and a great deal of time, but eventually Castiel, weary but valiant, chases the nightmares away. After that night, the dreams are still dreamt, but not as violently. Never as violently as the night Sam leaves him.<p>

For the next two years Castiel battles nightmares, once, twice, three times a night, in a particularly bad week. Always the same dream, always Sam leaving, or dying, or just gone. The most recurring one is also the most chilling, and though Castiel would never like to think so, the dreams scare him almost as much as they scare Dean.  
>In the dream, Dean's in a forest. He doesn't know why he's in a forest, just that he has to find Sam before dawn, and the sun's coming up. So he runs. Through the woods, stumbling over tree roots and ducking low hanging branches, he runs and runs, not knowing where Sam is, only knowing that if he doesn't find him, his world collapses in on itself. He never finds him.<p>

In 2005, Sam and Dean are reunited, under tragic circumstances, and that night, in the motel, Dean sleeps dreamlessly for the first time since his mother died. It's the younger Winchester who tosses and turns, searching for a girlfriend he won't find, and calling for an angel who can't answer.

In 2006, John nearly loses his son, Sam nearly loses his brother, and Dean loses his father, for the second time in his life. It's about now that Castiel begins to see the first dregs of Dean's hatred for himself trickle through into his life. He despises that his father gave up his life to save his son's. He feels he doesn't deserve it. That night he dreams of hell, and his father's endless screams, endless torture, endless pain in Hell, and he wishes it was him.

In 2007, Jake Talley stabs Sam in the back with a hunting knife, and Dean loses his brother again. Castiel is sure these nightmares would have been too strong for all the angels in hell to fight off, but Dean doesn't sleep. Just climbs into his car and sells his soul. Without a second thought, Castiel is forced to watch the man he swore to protect condemn himself to Hell forever. For what? The sake of a year with his brother. Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty five days pass, each one with a nightmare increasing in intensity until Castiel is left panting, his wings limp and the fire in his sword dulled from the battle. He won't give up though. It would be so easy, now that Dean has chosen Hell, for Heaven to turn its back on him. It does, for the most part, until Castiel is left on the outside, fighting for Dean, with Dean, sometimes against Dean. He himself is so willing to consign himself to the pit, he either doesn't see, or chooses to ignore his little brother tearing himself apart because of the guilt that infects him more deeply than demon blood ever could.  
>In 2008, Sam loses his brother, and Castiel loses the man he has come to think of as his everything. He'd be lying if he said he didn't love Dean, it was unconditional for a guardian to love his charge, but losing Dean cut Castiel deeper than anything he'd ever felt. He'd lost charges before, sometimes to Hell, sometimes just to death and the understanding that they'd be happier on the other side, but never has he been brought this low by the death of one of his own.<p>

If he could he'd enter Hell the day, the hour, the minute, the _second,_ Dean entered through the flaming gates of the pit, but orders forbade him. For twenty nine years, he's been exempt from heaven's rulings, (because God decreed that guardian angels were to hold their humans in higher regard than the way of heaven) and the instant Dean is dead he is dragged back to heaven. He argued his case, he begged and pleaded on hands and knees, but he was forced to wait until the snapping sound echoing across the heavens signified the breaking of the first seal, and Castiel dives out of the clouds into hell, falling further than any angel has ever been, not caring that his once white wings became sooty and black the further he dove. Dean occupies his thoughts and is the only voice he hears, crescendo-ing above all the other souls crying out for help and salvation, following the voice he knew better than his own until he finds Dean, bleeding and broken but _Dean_, and he grips him and flies steadily upwards.

The higher he soars, the lighter Dean becomes, as if he was leaving the heaviness of his tortured soul back in the depths of hell, until he raises him to the grave Sam had buried him in four months previously. The handprint Castiel unwittingly seared on his arm glows cherry red, and Castiel kisses him once on the forehead before melting out of the ground and waiting, watching, hoping...

It's September 18th, 2008, and Dean Winchester crawls out of his grave.

Castiel is watching, and thanking God.

We're back in the kitchen, and my head is spinning from the information Castiel has just fed me. Everything I have observed about Dean Winchester now makes oceans of sense. I watch the sleeping hunter on the couch, and wait, knowing that the nightmare is at bay, for now.

He jerks awake, maybe feeling the angel's eyes on him. His eyes slide to his brother, always checking on him, the first thing he does in the morning and the last thing he does at night. Glancing towards the kitchen, he spots us and heaves himself off the couch, heading towards us, hissing almost imperceptibly as his bare feet hit the tiled floor.

'Excellent job with the witnesses,' we say in my new gravel toned voice.

Dean looks at us, disbelieving. 'You were hip to all this?'

'I was, uh, made aware,' Castiel says, sounding suitably guilty.

The green in Dean's jade eyes darken, presumably with anger. 'Well thanks a lot with the angelic assistance. You know, I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest!'  
>'But you didn't,' we point out, kinda unnecessarily, I say to Castiel, but he's ignoring me again. Sometimes I wonder if he just doesn't hear me.<p>

'I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos- you know, Michael Landon. Not dicks.'

_*He has a point...*_I muse, and this time Cas hears me, apparently, because the next words out of his mouth are pointed and sharp.

'Read the Bible,' he pretty much snarls at both of us. 'Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.'

'Yeah? Then why didn't you fight?' Dean's still whispering, trying not to raise his voice too much, in case he wakes his brother.

'I'm not here to perch on your shoulder,' _*Not when you're awake, anyway*_I add, but Castiel snarls at me internally, and I think it's not a good idea to piss off the driver. 'We had larger concerns.'

'Concerns? There were people getting torn to shreds down here! And by the way, while this is going on, where the hell is your boss, huh? If there _is_ a God?'  
>'There's a God,' Castiel replies instantly, more steadfast than I've ever heard anyone. He may have fought heaven tooth and nail to save Dean, but he had true faith. Which is more than can be said for Dean.<p>

'I'm not convinced. 'Cause if there's a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the earth? The freakin' apocalypse? At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?'

Castiel tilts our head and again and says the only answer he knows to give to that. 'The lord works-'

'If you say in mysterious ways so help me, I'll kick your ass!' Dean interrupts, forgetting to be quiet. 'So Bobby was right...about the witnesses. This is some kind of a... sign of the apocalypse.' He lapses into a contemplating sort of silence until Castiel breaks it.

'That's why we're here. Big things are afoot.' The 'we' surprises me. As far as he's made me aware, he's the only angel down on earth apart from a few... exceptions.  
>'Do I want to know what kinda things?'<p>

'I sincerely doubt it,' we say dryly. Probably the closest Castiel's ever come to a joke. 'But you need to know. The raising of the witnesses is one of the sixty six seals.'

Dean frowns slightly, maybe racking his brain for those words. Clearly he comes up blank, because the next words out of his mouth are a sarcastic comeback. 'Okay. I'm guessing that isn't a show at Seaworld.'

'Those seals are being broken by Lilith.'

'She did the spell. She rose the witnesses.' Realisation dawns on Dean's face.  
>We nod. 'Mm-hm. And not just here. Twenty other hunters are dead.'<p>

'Of course,' snorted Dean. 'She picked victims that the hunters couldn't save, so they'd barrel right after us.'

'Lilith has a certain sense of humour,' we say. _*One way of putting it*_I add, but it seems Castiel's gone right back to ignoring me.

'Well, we put those spirits back to rest.' Dean reminds us, but it makes no difference.

'It doesn't matter. The seal was broken.'

'Why break the seal, anyway?' he asks suddenly, like an afterthought.

'You think of the seals as locks on a door.'

'Okay. Last one opens and...?'

'Lucifer walks free.' The words put a chill down my back and a knot settles in the pit of my stomach at the mention of the devil walking the earth.

'Lucifer?' Dean clearly has no such chill, or knot. He simply looks incredulous. 'But I though Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school? There's no such thing.'

Castiel tilts our head again. 'Three days ago you thought there was no such thing as me. Why do you think we're here now, walking among you for the first time in two thousand years?'

'To stop Lucifer.' There's a petulant sound in Dean's voice, like a sulky child.  
>'That's why we've arrived.'<p>

'Well, bang up job so far,' he says, his voice snarky. 'Stellar work with the witnesses. That's nice.'

'We tried. And there are other battles, other seals. Some we'll win, some we'll lose. This one we lost. Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of heaven should just follow you around? There's a bigger picture here. You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell, I can throw you back in.' Dean's face pales when we say that, and the nightmares play over in his eyes. I feel the guilt settling on my stomach, overlaying the grief from Castiel's fallen brothers.

Dean glances towards his brother again, but by the time he looks back we're gone, soaring high above the clouds. It's weirdly silent between the two of us. Castiel isn't know for mindless conversation, and I'm not sure what to say.

_*I'm sorry about your brothers*_I say, eventually, and I feel the grief shuddering again.

_*Me too*_he replies, and I see just how much family means to Castiel in those two words.

_*Family is everything to you, isn't it?*_

*Almost everything*

We fly in silence for a while. I wonder where our destination is.

_*Tell me about them*_I say finally, and I can almost hear the hesitation in his mind.

_*The first to die was Adnachiel. He was the angel assigned to the sun sign Sagittarius. His dominion was independence, honesty and gregariousness. He was a good brother. Zachi was the angel of winning, triumph and development. His cheerful, infectious laugh filled the heavens, and his ruby wings could be seen from miles away. Abel...*_ There was a pause. I listen to the shuddering breaths filling our lungs for maybe three minutes. I am silent for all three, before he continues. _*Abel was the angel of death, souls and judgement. He was in my garrison. I worked very closely with him before I left heaven to travel down here. He was younger even than me, less than a millennia old. He shouldn't have been fighting, let alone on the front line. Rehael was an important angel, becoming more and more integral to humans as the world matured. He was always there for someone just breaking up with their partner, and while he couldn't help everyone, there are people out there living, loving, dating, because he showed them how to move on. Iophiel was the last angel to die, another brother from my garrison. He was the angel of wisdom, not a warrior, another angel forced to the front line that shouldn't have been there. The last celestial being to die was an archangel. Camael was seen as a true angelic warrior, but it still wasn't enough. He died like a true solider, but he still died. Heaven shook with tears when he fell in battle. It still does for his garrison. Thirty five angels are now leaderless, lost. They have no one to guide them.*_

We fly in silence gain for seventeen minutes, before touching down gently somewhere I don't know. We're in a market square bustling with dozens of people, none of whom seem to notice us, or if they do, they don't care. Behind us a church rises to the clouds, partly covered in scaffolding and green netting. In the distance I can see a cathedral on a hill, majestic and old as time itself. In the market square with us are two statues, one of Neptune holding his trident aloft, and one of a military looking man on horseback. It's an old town, alive with history, and had I been here in use of my own body, I could happily spend hours exploring it. However, apparently Castiel has other plans.

_*I don't want to lose any more brothers*_He says, and that seems to be the last of it, as we approach a woman with long blonde hair perched on the steps under the equestrian statue.

'Sitael,' he says as a greeting, sitting next to her.

She rolls her eyes, stabbing at a polystyrene tray filled with French fries. 'I told you, stop calling me that.'

'But, it's your name,' we reply, confusion filtering through as he tilts our head to the side again. _*You know, you look like a sad puppy when you do that*_I add.

_*Are puppies considered bad?*_he counters, still watching the woman I assume is an angel pick at the fried potatoes, flicking a burnt one to the birds pecking around our feet.

_*No...*_I say, trying to be diplomatic

_*Then what is the problem?*_

Finally I bite the bullet. _*It's weird when you do it. It makes people uncomfortable*_

Sitael's watching us now, like she can sense our conversation. 'When you're done being bi-polar, I assume you needed me for something?'

We nod. 'Lilith raised the witnesses.'

She throws the rest of her fries in a nearby bin, hopping down from the steps and landing neatly on the crooked cobblestones. We follow her as she strides through the crowds, past the stalls selling candy and classic rock t-shirts, past the Merry-Go-Round whirling round and round and round, children laughing. She leads us up a hill and we get closer to the cathedral I saw earlier. Eventually, we emerge onto a green after passing countless ancient looking shops selling everything from art supplies to semi precious gemstones and Wiccan artefacts. We cross the green, ignoring the 'Keep off the grass' sign and enter a small building just off the main cathedral. Inside it's clearly been modernised, while metal shelves rest on old stone walls, and a metal detector stands on warped wooden floors. Sitael delves in the messenger bag slung over her shoulder and retrieves a pass of some kind, nodding to the security guard as she glides through the metal detector, throwing a 'He's with me' over her shoulder before disappearing through a low door.

Through the door, we go down a small flight of stairs, ducking to avoid the low hanging beams, through another door and down a long stone corridor until we emerge into a deserted room filled from floor to ceiling with books of every shape and size. She goes straight to the far corner and jumps onto a stool to crane her arms for a book just above her reach. We reach up and retrieve the book in question, and she snatches it before stalking to an old oak table, strong and sturdy. She flicks through the book, past old woodcut style illustrations, stopping on a page about halfway through the book. 'The rising of the witnesses. One of the 666 seals to break Lucifer out of the pit. Only 66 of the 666 need to be broken. Who broke the first?'  
>We don't answer, but the look on our face must speak volumes, because she nods sombrely and continues reading off the page, her grey eyes sharp.<p>

_*Who did break the first seal?*_I ask, curious.

_*And it is written that the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man spills blood in hell. And he breaks, so shall it break*_ He intones dully, as we watch Sitael rifle through the pages of the book, stopping occasionally to scribble down a few words in a notepad. A tendril of long blond hair falls over one shoulder as she writes and I realise what's wrong with this picture. She's an angel, but she doesn't have the same vibe as Castiel. She feels...  
>Wrong. It's the only way I can summarise.<p>

_*She IS wrong*_ Castiel intercepts. _*She shouldn't exist at all, but here she is, in the same room as us*_ Somehow, I don't think he's talking to me anymore.  
><em>*Speaking of the same room as us, where are we? Cos I don't think we're in Kansas anymore*<em> I quip, and I can feel the head tilt inside our conjoined mind.  
><em>*We were never in Kansas*<em>He explains, like talking to a small child, and I sigh.

_*Never mind*_ I sigh, _*Where are we?*_

*A small town in England. Sitael is... not welcome in Heaven, so she has been... travelling, to avoid detection*

'You know, it's rude to talk about a girl behind her back. She might get offended.' Sitael stands up, clutches the notepad. She tosses it at us lightly and we catch it, looking down at the messy handwriting.

'What is this?' we ask.

'It's a list of the 100 or so seals most likely to be broken by Lilith. I narrowed it down by taking out some seals that are impossible to break, like the ones involving certain dates before today and there are a couple involving extinct plants and animals.'

We nod in thanks, before making our way back out into the open air. He'd never admit it, but enclosed spaces made Castiel nervous. Emerging out onto the green, we spread invisible wings and disappearing into the sky, leaving the wrong feeling angel behind.  
><em>*She's a fallen angel?*<em>I ask once we're above the clouds, bathing wings in orange sunlight

_*Of sorts*_

*What does that mean?*

I enquire, but he says nothing, merely flying upwards until we reach a sort of barrier. Heaven? I expected more, I guess. Pearly gates, maybe a bright light. Saint Peter's obviously too much to ask.

But Heaven is heaven, so I take a breath and enter the realm of the angels...


	4. Chapter 4

Sam leaves, sneaking out as he does almost every night. We watch him leave and listen to the car engine roar.

We watch Dean sleep, his nose wrinkling as he battles hell in his dreams.  
>Castiel was given orders while we were in heaven. If Dean Winchester cannot fight off his dreams, how can he be expected to fight the apocalypse when it lands on his front step? It pains me to watch him like this, but it pains Castiel more, and we sit on the edge of his bed, praying he'll wake up soon.<p>

He jerks awake and spins round to eye us apprehensively. 'Hello Dean. What were you dreaming about?' We ask, a little harshly in my opinion, but since Castiel was given the new orders, he listens to me less and less.

'What, do you get your freak on by watching other people sleep? What do you want?' he grumbles, but we can see he's glad to be awake.

'Listen to me. You have to stop it.'

'Stop what?' he asks, confused. We touch two fingers to his forehead and he is gone, spiralling through the past. His past. Pre-Sam. Pre-him. 1973. The year it all began.  
><em>*Do you really believe he can stop it?*<em>I say, breaking the silence in a too quiet room.

I'm met with more silence, until we follow Dean through Winchester history.

We arrive and watch Dean enter a diner, half collapsing into a seat next to a young man, with dark hair and darker eyes. They make conversation for a few minutes until Dean learns the man's identity. They both leave, and Dean follows John Winchester round a corner, where he walks almost straight into us.

'What is this?' he snarls.

'What does it look like?' we counter, a question answering a question.

'Is it real?' he asks, after a moment of hesitation.

'Very.'

'Okay, so what? The angels got their hands on some DeLoreans? How did I get here?'

'Time is fluid, Dean. It's not easy, but we can bend it, on occasion,' we say, simplifying the complex strings that need to be pulled for this to happen.

'Well, bend it back or tell me what the hell I'm doing here!'

'I told you, you have to stop it,' Castiel repeats his earlier message, sounding more pissed than I've heard him before.

'Stop what?' Dean says, sounding almost as exasperated. 'What, is there something nasty after my dad?'

A car horn sounds, and Castiel uses the distraction to evaporate into the sky. Dean shouts after us as we float along lazily, watching him.

_*Watching over him*_Castiel corrects me.

We follow Dean as he picks up John's trail again, shadowing him to a car dealership, and watch as he persuades his father to buy the car he will eventually grow up in, a decade later.

We see when Dean finds his mother, ten years younger than he remembers, and even prettier.

We watch as Mary sneaks up behind Dean, demanding to know who he is. Castiel chuckles humourlessly at the look in Dean's eye as he realises his mother was a hunter from a family of hunters. Hunting was in his blood. Always had been, even before the fire.  
>We're standing outside, invisible to humans as we listen to the conversation between grandfather and grandson, a conversation they never got to have otherwise.<br>As he sleeps that night, we sooth his dreams, temporarily under the radar. I can feel Castiel's tension loosening once he knows his Dean won't be plagued by the nightmare of Hell.

Castiel perks up when I call Dean his. I'm not entirely sure why...

In the morning, we hang back, watching the farmhouse from a distance as Samuel Campbell approaches, Dean already inside and gleaning information from the widow.  
>A chill runs down my back when I see the look on Dean's face at the mention of the yellow eyed man.<p>

That night we watch from inside the Campbell house, as inconspicuous as we were outside. We're visible only out of the corner of an eyes, a flash of colour when you blink...

Dean tells Samuel about the Colt, the gun that can kill anything.

_*Can it kill angels?*_ I ask, wondering what happens to me if Castiel dies.  
><em>*Some angels* <em>He answers. _*Not Archangels*_

*Can it kill Lucifer?*

More silence. We watch as Dean, a single tear tracking its way down his face, implores his mother to please, stay in bed. If I had control of my tear ducts, I'm sure a few tears would escape from me as well. Castiel remains stony faced and dry eyed, but inside his heart is breaking for his Dean.

He bristles again, at the mention of Dean being his. I mean it only as reference to Dean being his charge.

Is he reading more into it?

We drop in on him while he's driving. We both take immense pleasure in watching him flinch as we greet him.

'So what, God's my co-pilot, huh?' he growls, looking thoroughly pissed off. We just look at him, tilting our head again. 'Well, you're just a regular chatty Kathy. Tell me something. Sam would have wanted in on this, why not bring him back?'

'You had to do this alone, Dean.'

'And you don't care that Sam's tearing up the future looking for me?'

'Sam's not looking for you,' we say, emotionlessly as possible. Dean doesn't need to know that his brother is off doing...whatever he does when he's with Her.

Dean accepts this and continues on another spiel, brain working fast. 'Alright, if I do this, the family curse breaks, right? Mom and Dad live happily ever after, and, and Sam and I grow up playing Little League and chasing tail?'

'You realise, if you do alter the future, your father, you, Sam, you'll never become hunters. And all those people you saved. They'll all die.'

There's silence in the car as he drives, knuckles tight on the wheel. 'I realize.'  
>'And you don't care?' we ask curiously.<p>

'Oh, I care. I care a lot, but these are my parents, I'm not gonna let them die again. No, not if I can stop it.'

He tears his eyes from the road, but we're already gone.

Caleb is scribbling notes down, the Dictaphone on the picnic table between the two men. His coffee, sitting on the bench next to him has gone cold as it sits there, undrunk.

'I think that was when I realised that, for all his self sacrifice, and martyrdom, Dean Winchester was essentially a selfish man. When you look at some of the defining moments of his life before he went to hell, it's clear as crystal. He was against his father selling his soul so he could live, because Dean couldn't live without his father. He sold his own soul so Sam could live. Or did he sell his soul so he didn't have to live without Sam? He was willing to kill thousands of people, not deliberately, but passively (which is almost worse, don't you think) so his parents got the happy ever after he wanted them to have.' Jimmy takes a sip of what had to be lukewarm coffee at best, icy sludge at worst.

'But he didn't, in the end. Otherwise, things would have been different. He chose all those people over his parents?'

Jimmy shakes his head sadly. 'He didn't choose...'

I watch as Dean jimmies his way into Daniel Elkins' safe, retrieving the Colt. I watch as he negotiates his way past the loaded shotgun, promising that Elkins gets his gun back. He drives like hellhounds are on his tail all the way back to Lawrence and heads into the Campbell house.

Castiel knows what happens next, I'm sure he does. Samuel's eyes flash yellow, and Dean loses a grandmother. They flash again, and he loses a grandfather. Out by the woods, they flash a third time, and he loses a father for the first time.  
>A fourth flash, and he loses his mother forever.<p>

We land silently beside him as he watches the past shape his future, and bring him back to now.

He wakes up again, sitting bolt upright on top of the cover, he swings his legs off the edge and stares at his feet. 'I couldn't stop any of it, she still made the deal, she still died in the nursery, didn't she?'

'Don't be too hard on yourself. You couldn't have stopped it.'

_*You knew that all along, didn't you?*_ I add, and I sense him nodding. _*Angels are real dicks, sometimes, you know that?*_

He nods again, sadly.

'What?' Dean asks, incredulous.

'Destiny can't be changed, Dean. All roads lead to the same destination.'

'Then why'd you send me back?'

'For the truth. Now you know everything we do.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' Dean snaps.

'We know what Azazel did to your brother. What we don't know is why, what his endgame is. He went to great lengths to cover that up.' Dean snorts, he obviously doesn't care.

'Where's Sam?'

'425 Waterman,' we say eventually. Dean moves fast, darting around the room to grab his leather jacket, his keys, the gun from under his bed.

'Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean. And we're not sure where it leads, so stop it. Or we will.'

Dean spins round and looks at us, anger permeating from every pore in his body. I can feel myself shrivelling under his glare, but Castiel stands firm, his face as blank as always.

He leaves us in the motel room, slamming the door on the way out, so hard the windows rattle, and the headboard bangs against the wall. We stand in the middle of an empty room. _*You're a heartless bastard, aren't you?*_I say simply, without malice or spite.

We don't see Sam or Dean for over a month, busy as we are adjusting to having a partner down on Earth.

Uriel is a very different type of angel to Castiel. Castiel calls him a specialist, I call him creepy. He's a cleanser, used for wiping smudges off a map, the smudges being towns or cities containing sinners. He says that it's just his job, but Castiel remembers the glint in his eye when he would smite a town. No one smiles that much for a job that 'has to be done'.

We take frequent visits to heaven, for more orders, and I meet Zachariah, a weasel faced angel that I take an immediate disliking to.

Two days before All Hallows Eve, Luke Wallace dies. A hex bag is found in his house. Later, a teenage girl dies. Another hex bag. We consult the list from Sitael. The raising of Samhain. We are given our final orders from heaven before we leave with Uriel to wait in the motel room the Winchester's are currently inhabiting. As soon as we land, something feels wrong.

We search the room quickly and methodically and find a third hex bag, hidden in the wall cavity. Uriel is looking out of the window when the door opens, and the younger Winchester draws his gun, bringing it forward in an attack stance. 'Who are you?' he demands, but before we can answer Dean pushes the gun out of the way, instinctively defending us. The gun can't hurt us, but he still pushes it out of the way.

'Sam! Sam! Wait, it's just Cas!' Sam stands there, blinking. 'The angel,' Dean reminds him, before catching sight of Uriel, still looking out of the window, not acknowledging anyone. 'Him I don't know.'

Sam looks at us again, smiling faintly. 'Hello Sam,' we say, and he grins, ear to ear.  
>'Oh my God, er, uh, I didn't mean to, sorry. It's an honour, really, I-I've heard a lot about you.' Sam steps forward and holds out a hand for us to shake. We look at it, Castiel confused. <em>*You're supposed to shake it*<em>I explain, and am reinforced by Sam shaking his own hand a little. Castiel finally puts his hand in Sam's and they shake.

'And I, you.' Castiel tells him, and he smiles wider. 'Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood.' His smile drops. 'Glad you see you've ceased your extracurricular activities.'

'Let's keep it that way.' Uriel interrupts from his station on the other side of the room, and the Winchesters look at him.

'Yeah, OK, Chuckles,' Dean snarks, before turning back to us. 'Who's your friend?'  
>'The raising of Samhain, have you stopped it?' Castiel asks, ignoring the question. <em>*You're being evasive again*<em>I point out.

'Why?'

'Dean, have you located the witch?' We keep on asking him questions, and eventually he folds.

'Yes, we located the witch,' he sighs.

'And is the witch dead?'

'No, but-' Sam takes over, but Dean interrupts him.

'We know who it is.'

We cross the room and retrieve the hex bag from the bedside table. 'Apparently the witch knows who you are too.' We hold it up to them. 'This was inside the wall of your room. If we hadn't found it, surely one or both of you would be dead. Do you know where this witch is now?'

They exchange a look.

'We're working on it,' Dean says eventually.

'That's unfortunate,' we answer, with a regretful look at Uriel.

'What do you care?' Dean asks, hostile.

'The rising of Samhain is one of the sixty six seals,' we inform him, somewhat haughtily, I thought.

'So this is about your buddy Lucifer,' Dean starts, but Uriel interrupts him with a snarl.

'Lucifer is no friend of ours.'

'It's just an expression,' Dean defends himself.

'Lucifer cannot rise.' We cut in, before an argument starts. I get the feeling Castiel has been heading off arguments with Uriel for a while now. 'The breaking of this seal must be prevented at all costs.'

'Okay, great, well now that you're here, why don't you tell us where the witch is, we'll gank her and everyone goes home.' Dean throws his hands up, apparently intent on venting on someone.

'We are not omniscient, this witch is very powerful, she's cloaked even our methods.'  
>'Okay, well, we already know who she is, so if we work together-' Sam is formulating a plan when Uriel interrupts again, turning away from the window to face the rest of us.<p>

'Enough of this.'

Dean snaps. 'Ok, who are you, and why should I care?' he spits out. We decide to intervene. Again.

'This is Uriel. He's what you might call a... specialist.'

'What kind of specialist?' Dean asks, looking slightly worried. 'What's he gonna do?'  
>'You uh, both of you need to leave this town, immediately.' We try and placate him, knowing that what comes up next is going to be incendiary.<p>

'Why?' he asks the question I didn't want him to ask, and we have no choice but to answer it.'

'Because we're about to destroy it.' We say, with finality. The brothers exchange a worried glance and my stomach hardens into a knot. Dean reacts first, rounding on us.  
>'So this is your plan, you're gonna smite the whole friggin' town?'<p>

'We're out of time, this witch has to die, the seal must be saved.'

'There are a thousand people here,' pleads Sam, and I turn to him.

'One thousand two hundred fourteen,' Uriel corrects, smug.

'And you're willing to kill them all?' he cries.

'This isn't the first time I've... purified a city,' Uriel answer. I suspect he's deliberately choosing the most antagonistic words, pushing the Winchesters slightly.  
>'Look, I understand this is... regrettable,' we add in before Sam can counter Uriel by punching him in the face.<p>

'Regrettable?' Dean echoes my words, disbelief written on his face.

'We have to hold the line. Too many seals have broken already,' I clarify.

'So you screw the pooch on some seals, and this town has to pay the price?'

'It's the lives of one thousand,' _*One thousand two hundred fourteen*_I correct angrily. I'm just as pissed as Dean is about this. He's still ignoring me. 'against the lives of six billion. There's a bigger picture here.'

Dean snorts. 'Yeah, cos you're bigger picture kind of guys.'

'Lucifer cannot rise,' we repeat. 'He does, and Hell rises with him. Is that something you're willing to risk?' I can feel Castiel's anger seething below me, above me, all around me. It's everywhere, all consuming, like being at the heart of the sun.

'We'll stop this witch before she summons anyone. Your seal won't be broken, and no one has to die.' Sam throws his plea out wildly.

'We're wasting time with these mud monkeys,' Uriel tosses the insult out offhandedly.  
>We turn away from Dean, not wanting to argue any longer. 'I'm sorry, but we have our orders.'<p>

The look on Sam's face is heart wrenching. 'No, you can't do this, you're angels, I mean, aren't you supposed to... you're supposed to show mercy.' He sounds so childish and naive, not looking a day over his young years, his face younger than it's looked since his girlfriend died. _*THAT'S a puppy face*_ I notify Castiel _*That's what you look like every time you tilt your head.*_

I sense the mental equivalent of a pout, before Uriel butts into the conversation again, twisting the knife in Sam's faith system. 'Says who?'

'We have no choice,' we sideline the conversation about mercy.

'Of course you have a choice, I mean, come on, what? You've never questioned a crap order, huh? What, you're both just a coupla hammers?'

'Look, even if you can't understand it, have faith. The plan is just.' The Winchester and I snort with disdain at the same time.

'How can you even say that?' Sam asks, and I can tell Castiel is starting to doubt, to question, before he reminds himself that he doesn't question orders. He obeys heaven. Indefinitely. And he says as much in his answer.

'Because it comes from heaven. That makes it just.'

'Oh, it must be nice, to be so sure of yourselves.' Dean retorts, and Castiel replies with a barbed answer that stops him in his tracks.

'Tell me something, Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn't you obey?' He looks at us for a second, and I can tell he's making a decision.

'Well, sorry boys, looks like the plans have changed.'

'You think you can stop us?' Uriel looks them up and down, clearly not impressed with the 'mud monkeys'. Dean heads over to him, standing only inches away, looking him directly in the eye.

'No, but if you're gonna smite this whole town, then you're gonna have to smite us with it, because we are not leaving. See, you went to the trouble of busting me out of hell, I figure I'm worth something to the man upstairs. So you wanna waste me, go ahead, see how he digs that.'

Uriel steps forward, closing the distance between angel and hunter. 'I will drag you out of here myself,' he literally growls at Dean, who just smirks.

'Yeah, but you'll have to kill me, then we're back to the same problem. I mean, come on, you're gonna wipe out a whole town for one little witch. Sounds to me like you're compensating for something.' He turns to us and pleads one final time. 'We can do this. We will find that witch, and we will stop the summoning.'

Uriel starts arguing again, but Castiel holds up a hand. 'Enough!' We stare at dean for just a second too long, so he starts squirming 'I suggest you move quickly.'  
>They do, taking the hex bag and disappearing out the motel door as quickly as they had entered. I can see why some consider them to be ghosts in the system. We watch them for a while, smiling as Dean finds his car covered in egg.<p>

We're in a park, waiting for revelation from Heaven. Castiel and Uriel are side by side as we watch the sun setting. Children skip past in Halloween costumes and Castiel watches them, intrigued. 'The decision's been made,' we say, and Uriel's brow furrows.

'By a mud monkey.'

'You shouldn't call them that,' Castiel replies levelly, but I hear the undertone in his voice, even if he doesn't. Don't call _him _that.

'Ah, that's what they are,' Uriel waves it off with a flick of his hand. 'Savages, just plumbing on legs.'

'You're close to blasphemy,' we say, knowing that Lucifer fell because he had almost identical views towards his Father's creations. Uriel sighs. 'There's a reason we were sent to save him,' we add. 'He has potential, he may succeed here.'

We sit on the bench next to Uriel, resting our elbows on our knees. 'And at any rate, it's out of our hands now.'

'It doesn't have to be,' he counters, looking at us out of the corner of his eye.  
>'And what would you suggest?' we return, choosing our words carefully.<p>

'That we drag Dean Winchester out of here and blow this insignificant pinprick off the map.'

'You know our true orders.' We turn to look at him. 'Are you prepared to disobey?' He just looks at us in return, until he gets up and leaves, invisible wings taking him to heaven.

They didn't save the seal. The witch died, Samhain rose, and the seal broke, the crack echoing around heaven like every breaking seal did.

I don't know where Uriel is, but we're following Dean as he wanders through the town, stopping at the park Uriel and Castiel had conversed in earlier. He sits on the bench, watching the sun set. We land next to him, silently, but without looking, he greets us. 'Let me guess, you're here for the I told you so.'

'No,' we say, and he looks around at us, before turning away again.

'Well, good, 'cause I'm really not that interested.'

'I'm not here to judge you Dean,' we say, and his brow furrows slightly as he turns back, looking us in the eye.

'Then why are you here?'

'Our orders-' we begin, but he cuts us off.

'Yeah, you know, I've had just about enough of these orders of yours-' he starts, but it's our turn to interrupt.

'Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain, they were to do whatever you told us to.'

'Your orders were to follow our orders?' he asks, incredulous.

'It was a test, to see how you would perform under, battlefield conditions, you might say.'

'It was a witch, not the Tet offensive!' he snaps, sarcasm apparently being his default setting. Then his tone changes. 'So I uh- failed your test huh? I get it. But you know what? If you would have waved that magic time travelling wand of yours and we had to do it all over again, I'd make the same call. Cause see, I don't know what's gonna happen when these seals are broken, hell I don't even know what's gonna happen tomorrow. But what I do know is, that this, here? These kids, the swings, the trees, all of it is still here because of my brother and me.' He looks at his hands, his jaw set.

'You misunderstand me, Dean,' we say, our voice taking on a lower, gentler tone. 'I'm not like you think. I was praying you would choose to save the town.' He looks up at us again, and his face is tired, lines that weren't there six months ago. _*Hell does that to a person*_Castiel reminds me.

'You were?' he asks, and maybe I'm imagining it, but maybe a little bit of the weight on his shoulders is, not gone, just being supported by someone else. Us?  
>'These people, they're all my father's creations. They're works of art, and yet, even though you stopped Samhain, the seal was broken and we are one step closer to hell on earth, for all creation. Now that's not an expression Dean, it's literal. You of all people should appreciate what that means.' He looks at us and what little weight we were supporting for him dropped back on. 'Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?'<p>

'Okay,' he answers, shrugging slightly.

'I'm not a…hammer as you say, I have questions, I have doubts. I don't know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months you will have more decisions to make, I don't envy the weight that's on your shoulders Dean. I truly don't.'

We watch each other for a moment, until Dean looks away, watching the children whose lives he saved earlier today.

Our cue to leave. When he looks back, we're gone.


	5. Chapter 5

We pay another visit to Sitael, and once she's stopped tearing Castiel a new one for letting the seal break ('We're down to dozens of seals. Dozens!'), she agrees to come back to America. This isn't a war we can win if one of our more powerful allies is sitting on the sidelines.

When we get back (we have to take human transport, Sitael may be some kind of angel, but her wings are tattered, skeletal and rotting.), we go directly to the Winchesters. Or, we try to.

'We can't go to them,' she argues.

'Why not?' we ask, reasonably, in my opinion.

'Because they'll recognise me, genius! They know who I am!'

'And?'

'They think I'm dead! How are they going to react when they find out that Lilith didn't rip me into shreds? They're going to assume I've gone darkside!'

'Then this is your chance to tell them otherwise. We need you Sitael, you have to fight this war.'

'Stop calling me that! My name is not Sitael, and it hasn't been for over half a millenia! My name is Ruby!'

Eventually, we persuade Ruby (Sitael?) to come back with us, and Uriel meets us in Richmond, outside the woods that the Winchesters have been hiding in with Anna. Uriel wrinkles his nose when we show up, looking at Ruby disdainfully.

She looks back at him, an eyebrow arched. 'You need to walk more. You're getting flabby.'

He growls, and we step in. 'Can we fight later? Anael is in those woods, we need to find her.'

'Anael?' Ruby asks. 'I never liked her. Did she finally do Heaven a favour and Fall?'  
>I feel that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach that occurs any time someone mentions Falling, or dying angels. It's not a nice feeling, more like being sucker punched in the gut.<p>

'Be nice,' I remind them, and we set off in the woods. We're using the connection we have to Dean (the handprint branding) and it's slow progress, but eventually, we make it to the cabin. Uriel raises his hands, and a fierce wind blows through the trees as the door slams open and we enter, Ruby waiting outside. The panic on Dean's face drops, and he half smiles.

'Please tell me you're here to help. We've been having demon issues all day.'  
>'Well, I can see that,' snarls Uriel. 'You want to explain why you have that stain in the room?'<p>

Before they can answer, we get to the point. 'We're here for Anna.'

'Here for her like, here for her?' Dean asks, only succeeding in confusing Castiel.  
>'Stop talking,' Uriel spits. 'Give her to us.'<p>

'Are you gonna help her?' Sam asks, standing slightly in front of Anna and the demon.  
>'No. She has to die,' we say with regret.<p>

'You want Anna? Why?' Sam asks, moving further in front of her subtly.

'Out of the way,' Uriel threatens, taking a step forward. Outside, I can sense Ruby moving along the outside of the cabin, towards the back window. Anna turns and runs, heading for the other door in the cabin. It must lead into the bedroom. She locks it, and I hear drag marks that probably mean she's barricading herself in.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I know she's wiretapping your angel chats or whatever, but it's no reason to gank her.' Dean moves next to his brother, someone else for Uriel to barrel through.

'Don't worry, I'll kill her gentle,' he drawls, smiling darkly.

'You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?' Dean growls, his hand reaching for the knife in his waistband.

'As a matter of fact, we are. And?' we answer, moving next to Uriel. It's going to be a fair fight, if we have to fight.

'And? Anna's an innocent girl,' Sam throws the words out hotly.

'She is far from innocent,' we reply. Ruby's reached the back of the cabin and is waiting for something. A distraction? I look at Uriel, and he agrees, an imperceptible flap of invisible wings giving us the go ahead.

'What's that supposed to mean? Sam argues.

'It means she's worse than this abomination you've been screwing. Now give us the girl,' Uriel takes another step forward.

'Sorry, get yourself another one. Try JDate,' Dean smirks, shifting into a defensive position.

'Who's gonna stop us? You two? Or this demon whore?' Uriel throws her against the wall and makes a move for the room Anna's in, but he's tackled by Dean. I expect that of him, but Sam's a wild card. He pleads with me (Cas, stop... please), but he's too unpredictable. I touch two fingers to his forehead and he crumples. Uriel has Dean on the floor and is beating him viciously. Castiel's Grace aches to be able to help his charge, but he has orders. He must obey.

'I've been waiting for this,' Uriel says between punches, smug.

Suddenly, I hear Ruby scream, and a white light fills the room, and we are thrown out of the cabin, thrown halfway across the state. When he land, spiralling wildly and fighting for control over our wings, we notice that Ruby has flown with us, her rotten wings struggling, the tip of one has broken and hangs limply. We get to our feet as Uriel groans, on his hands and knees, his vessel gasping for a breath, and hold out a hand for Ruby. She takes it, struggling to her feet. She flaps the broken wing experimentally, cursing when a twinge of pain sends her crashing to her knees.  
>'Damn anti angel sigil,' she mutters, climbing to her feet again, one wing held at an awkward angle.<p>

'You know, the sigil threw you too,' I comment as she dusts herself off.

'Yeah, I know,' she snaps, glaring. 'Broken wing, remember?' I take a cautionary step backwards.

'It threw you,' I repeat, and her glare turns murderous. Another step backwards. 'I just mean, maybe you're more angel than you thought.'

She snorts, shaking her head. 'I'm no angel. Not anymore. I don't care what some stupid sigil thinks. Help tubby up, he's no good to us crippled. Even if he is a dick,' she adds, almost as an afterthought. Uriel growls breathlessly. I help him up and he disappears, most likely returning to Heaven for recharging and Revelation.  
>Later, when he's returned, and I've healed Ruby's broken wing as best I can, we head back to the Winchesters. While I might not like how the angels are keeping Anna out of the hands of the demons, I understand why it's necessary.<p>

Uriel won't tell us how, but he has the Winchester's location.

We land outside the abandoned barn they're using as a safe house and Uriel breaks the doors down again and we storm in, Ruby waiting outside again. She's still refusing to show herself to the Winchesters.

'Hello Anna. It's good to see you,' I say honestly.

'How? How did you find us? Dean?' Sam turns to his brother, puppy eyes wide and disbelieving.

'I'm sorry,' he says, looking back at his brother with the same hope-empty eyes he's had since he crawled out of hell.

'Why?' Sam asks.

'Because they gave him a choice,' Anna interrupts, standing between the two brothers. 'They either kill me, or kill you. I know how their minds work.' She stands on tiptoe and presses a kiss to Dean's lips. I ignore the strange twisting of my stomach. 'You did the best you could. I forgive you,' she whispers against his lips. 'Okay, no more tricks. No more running. I'm ready.'

'I'm sorry,' I say simply.

'No you're not. Not really. You don't know the feeling.'

'Still, we have history,' I say reluctantly. 'It's just-'

'Orders are orders, I know,' she interrupts. 'Just make it quick.'

'Don't you touch a hair on that poor girls head.' A voice drawls from behind me, and we all turn to see demons. Half a dozen of them, two holding Ruby between them as she struggles, swearing and kicking. Two more hold a demon, who glares daggers at Ruby, bleeding from a gaping wound on her stomach.

I turn back to the Winchesters, both of whom stand there, slack jawed, staring at Ruby. 'Ruby?' Sam says finally, and she stops swearing long enough to say 'Little busy here Sammo. Can we play family reunion later?'

'How dare you come in this room?' Uriel bellows. 'You pussing sore.'

'Name calling? That hurt my feelings... you sanctimonious fanatical prick,' the demon, Alistair replies, drawing a knife slowly. It glistens silver in the moonlight.  
>'Turn around, and walk away now,' I say, the undertone clear. If they don't, they die.<br>'Sure.' Alistair smiles, a smile that makes my skin crawl, and sends chills down my spine. 'Just give us the girl, we'll make sure she gets punished good and proper.'  
>'You know who we are, and what we will do. I won't say it again. Leave now... or we lay you to waste.'<p>

He thinks about it, twirling the knife idly. 'Think I'll take m'chances,' he says, laughing. The fight begins. The demons drop Ruby and the other girl, who collapses to the floor, curling in on herself. Ruby leaps to her feet and lashes out at one of the demons who had held her with a roundhouse kick, connecting solidly with the side of his head and he drops, cursing. I face Alistair and fling my hand out, trying to send him back to the pit. It doesn't work. I try again and he laughs. 'Sorry kiddo. Why don't you run to Daddy?'

A demon screams in agony as Uriel exorcises him, and then Alistair begins chanting.

_'Potestas inferna, me confirma.  
>Potestas inferna, me confirma.<br>Potestas inferma, me confirma!'_

I feel myself unravelling as I'm pushed towards heaven. Suddenly, I'm anchored back to the earth as Dean hits Alistair with a crowbar.

'Dean, Dean, Dean, I'm so disappointed,' he drawls in that lazy voice. 'You had so much promise,'

Ruby takes down another demon, but Anna has already snatched the grace from around Uriel's neck. Snake-fast, Ruby launches the knife she had just picked up and it hits Anna in the neck. She falls to the ground, dead. It's regrettable, but it had to be done. Sam retrieves the knife from Anna's body and spins round to face Alistair, wielding the one weapon that can kill him.

'This is my cue to leave, I think. Until next time, Dean, m'boy!' Alistair dissolved into the black smoke all demons are in their natural forms and dissipated into the floor.

Sam helps Dean up, who was kicked in the stomach by a demon, and Ruby cleans the knife that was dropped by Sam, sticking it back in her sheath. Sam then helps the other demon up, asking if she's OK. She nods, before rounding on Ruby. 'Why are you here? You're going to ruin _everything!_' she hisses, clutching her stomach.  
>Ruby smirks. 'Yup. And there's nothing you can do about it, bitch.'<br>Dean rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. 'Does someone want to explain what the hell is going on?'

'This bitch is a fraud!' shrieks Ruby, gesturing to the demon. 'I bet she told you she was me!'

Sam blinks and shakes his head again. 'Ruby?'

'Friggin' A, pal! Who else would come in here to save your sorry ass?' she snaps.

'Then, who's that?' He points to the dark haired woman, whose eyes have turned black; she's stealthily heading for the door. Uriel moves to block it.

'I'm going to enjoy smiting you, you worthless hellbitch,' he thunders, looking smugger than I've ever seen him.

'Sam, you can't let him,' she cries, but he looks at her, his eyes hard.

'You lied to me. You made me think you were someone I trusted.'

Dean leans in to whisper in Uriel's ear. 'I think that's a go for smiting.'

Uriel grins and grabs her around the neck, touching a finger to her forehead and sending her back to Hell.

Dean turns to Ruby and folds his arms. 'Start talking.'

So she talks, and to their credit, they listen.

She talks about when she was in hell, and how she escaped, returning to her body because it didn't seem right to take a living vessel, not after everything. She talks about living in England, under the radar from angel and demon alike, and she talks about being a fallen angel.

Sam listens. So does Dean, although he doesn't want to.

For the next month, Ruby travels, sometimes with the Winchesters, sometimes with us.  
>Sam and Dean slowly adjust to having a demon on their team again, although it's hard for them, trying to trust a demon after the demon they thought was someone they trusted betrayed them.<p>

Sam still disappears some nights. Dean pretends not to notice, like always. And the cycle continues.

After a seal is saved in Greybull, Wyoming, Uriel, Ruby and I manage to track down Alistair as he makes his escape.

After sealing him with a devil's trap drawn by both Ruby and I, we are called away.  
>Another angel has died. A sister from my garrison. I fly to her body and pray for her, leaving just as I hear sirens approaching. She's the seventh. The seventh angel from my garrison to die. My garrison is not on the front line, not anymore, so why are they dying?<p>

Uriel suspect's demon involvement, as does Ruby, so after many failed interrogations of Alistair, and beyond my better judgement, we're forced to go to Dean.

We wait in the motel room they're living in for them to come back from Pamela Barnes' funeral.

'Ah, home, crappy home,' Dean exclaims after he pushes the door open, Sam flipping on the lights as he goes, illuminating the room.

'Oh come on!' he cries, seeing Uriel and I there, Ruby sprawled on the bed chain smoking.

'Winchester and Winchester,' Uriel greets them, sullenly. He makes no secret, in Heaven or on earth, that he despises the Winchesters, especially the younger one.  
>'You're needed, apparently,' Ruby sighs, flicking ash into a plastic cup.<p>

Hey Rubes,' Dean nods at her, to which she waves before going back to her cigarette. He turns his attention back to Uriel. 'No way. We just got back from needed.'  
>'Mind your tone with me,' Uriel retorts, his muscles tensing.<p>

'No, you mind your damn tone with us,' Dean shouts, moving into Uriel's space, right up in his face.

'We just got back from Pamela's funeral,' Sam tells us, not looking too pleased about how easily Dean's accepted Ruby, or about us being in his motel room, again.

'Pamela. You know, psychic Pamela? You remember her. Cas, you remember her. You burned her eyes out. Remember that? Good times. Yeah, then she died saving one of your precious seals. So maybe you can stop pushing us around like chess pieces for _five freaking minutes!'_ Dean cries, throwing his hands in the air.

'We raised you out of hell for our purposes,' Uriel reminds him.

'Yeah, what were those again? What exactly do you want from me? Dean fumes.

'Start with gratitude.' Uriel suggests darkly. On the bed, Ruby rolls her eyes. We've all grown used to Dean and Uriel's arguments.

'Dean, I know this is difficult to understand,' I start, but Uriel takes over.

'And we,' he pauses to look meaningfully at me. 'Don't care. Now, seven angels have been murdered, all from our garrison. The last one was killed tonight.'

'Demons?' Dean asks. 'How they doing it?'

'We don't know,' Uriel admits, looking slightly shamefaced. Dean looks smug about that, the fact that Uriel, as smug as he can be, is not infallible.

'I'm sorry, but what do you want us to do about it? I mean, a demon with the juice to ice angels has gotta out of our league, right?' Sam asks, after a pissy look at Ruby, sprinkling more ash into the cup and spreading the smoke around the room.

'We can handle the demons, thank you very much,' Uriel says icily.

'Once we find whoever it is,' I add.

'So you need our help hunting a demon?' Dean asks, I shake my head.

'Not quite. We have Alistair.'

'Great. He should be able to name your trigger man.'

'But he won't talk,' I explain. 'Alistair's will is very strong. We've reached an impasse.'

'Yeah, well, he's like a black belt in torture. I mean, you guys are out of your league.'

'That's why we came here,' Ruby speaks up again. 'Even if I think it's fucking horrific for them to make you do this,' she adds, glaring at us. I want to tell her I feel the same way, that I was considering disobedience so Dean didn't have to do this, but I can't. I just...

Can't.

'You're our best hope,' I say to mask the sudden silence, not meeting his eyes. I can't bear to see the fear behind them. Fear that I put there.

'No. No, you can't ask me to do this Cas. Not this.' I almost disobey right there. Angels are meant to love and protect God's creations, why are we doing this?  
>'Who said anything about asking?' Uriel says, and then they're gone, leaving me in the room with Sam and Ruby. She climbs off the bed and puts her cigarette out, walking up to Sam and looking up into his face.<p>

'You know, we know, Sam.'

'Know what?' he asks, almost sounding too innocent.

'Think about it,' she says, and I take that as a cue to leave, taking Ruby with me.

We're in a warehouse, somewhere in Canada. No one's going to disturb us. I show Dean the room with Alistair bound to the iron devils trap, and the multiple chalk traps drawn out on the floor. Even if he gets out of the devils trap, he can't get out of the room. 'The devil's trap is old Enochian,' I tell Dean.

'Fascinating,' he says, before turning away. 'Where's the door?'

'Where are you going?'

'Hitch back to Cheyenne, thank you very much,' he snaps, heading for the door, which is suddenly blocked by Uriel.

'Angels are dying, boy,' he says, packing more malice in that one syllable than I thought possible.

'Everybody's dying these days. And hey, I get it. You're all-powerful, you can make me do anything you want. But you can't make me do this.'

'This is too much to ask, I know,' I say.

'That's what I said!' Ruby says from the corner she's lounging in. 'If you had any idea what hell was like, you couldn't ask him to do this.'

'What hell was like?' I ask, quietly? 'I'm the one who dragged him out of the pit. Who are you to assume I can't ask him to do this? You think the image of hell isn't burned into my memory? Images of Dean in hell seared onto my very Grace?' There is silence. 'Never presume to know anything about me.' I turn back to Dean. This is too much to ask. But I have to ask it.'

Dean looks at me for a moment, his Nile green eyes staring deep into me. Then he looks at Uriel, and I see the rage burning bright, overlaying the fear and all the other emotions. 'I want to talk to Cas alone.'

'Really.' Uriel draws the word out.

'If you want a snowball's chance of me getting in there, then you're gonna shag ass and let us talk.'

Uriel scowls, before turning and heading for the door. 'I think I'll go seek revelation. We might have further orders.'

'Well, get some donuts while you're out,' Dean quips, and Uriel laughs.

'Ah, this one just won't quit, will he? I think I'm starting to like you, boy.'

He leaves, invisible wings masking him from Dean's view. 'You guys don't walk enough. You're gonna get flabby,' Dean says, and Ruby laughs as she saunters out of the room, cigarette smoke wafting after her.

'You know, I'm starting to think Junkless has a better sense of humour than you,' he says, perching of the back of a chair.

'Uriel's the funniest angel in the garrison. Ask anyone.' I say honestly. Dean takes another look at me before closing the space between us.

'What's goin' on Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?' he asks, those green eyes boring into mine again.

'My superiors have begun to question my sympathies,' I reply, looking down.  
>'Your sympathies?'<p>

'I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You. Even to your brother. They feel I've begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgment.'

'So they knock you down the ladder and put Uriel in charge?' he asks, incredulous.  
>'He is a proud and able instrument of God,' I say, still looking at the floor.<br>'The demotion. Doesn't it get your loincloth in a twist?'

_Of course,_ I think, but I tell him 'It is what it is to be.'

'Well, tell Uriel or whoever... you do not want me doing this. Trust me.' He sounds so broken, so sincere, that I look up to meet his eyes. There is absolute trust in them. Trust for me. Trust I can't possibly reciprocate, no matter how much I want do.  
>'Want it, no. But I have been told we need it,' I answer eventually. The only answer I can give. It's Heaven's will, Heaven's doing.<p>

'Cas, the things that I did, what I became...you ask me to open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out.'

'You know what we're all fighting for. And dying for. What Pamela lost her life for. You know what will happen if we fail. For what it's worth, I would give anything not to have you do this.' I answer honestly, painfully honest, praying he'll see through me as the angel, and see me as Castiel, someone who would give his life for the man standing in front of him.

He closes his eyes, and I can almost taste the internal struggle he's constantly at the fore of, permanently battling his demons. 'I'll need a few things,' he says finally, and my heart sinks. We've broken him, finally. This is a good thing. Now we can stop the apocalypse.

So why does it feel like the end of the world when I look in his eyes?

Caleb is sitting in his apartment, listening to the Dictaphone. Jimmy had spoken for hours about Castiel's struggle with what is just and what is right, and the warring feelings he had for Dean.

He wonders if Jimmy noticed the subtle shift from talking about him and Castiel as 'us' to 'I'. Caleb has set up another meeting with Jimmy tomorrow; he knows Jimmy would have kept talking through the night, caught up in history and could have been and what actually was.

With what notes he has, Caleb knows he can at least start his paper, so he flips the laptop lid open and powers it on, waiting for Word to load up. Then he starts writing.

_'There are two types of angels. There are the guardian angels, the ones who love us, and watch over us. Then there are the other angels, the soldiers, warriors of God. Some special angels are both, warriors and guardians. This paper is about what happens when an angel is caught between the will of heaven, and the love they have for their charge, a bond running deeper than family or blood ever can...'_

He taps out a couple of pages, pausing and rewinding the Dictaphone numerous times to make sure he hears everything, writing until the keyboard keys start to blur together, and he calls it a night. Saving what he has, he clicks the laptop shut and collapses into bed, intending to sleep until a half hour before he has to meet Jimmy, in the campus coffee shop.

Jimmy beats him there, as Caleb knew he would, rushing it with his bag stuffed full of papers and the ever present Dictaphone. Jimmy is sipping at a latte, doodling on a napkin idly as Caleb throws himself into the seat opposite, muttering apologies and ordering an espresso in a vain attempt to wake the fuck up before Jimmy can get started again.

It's ten thirty in the morning when Jimmy starts talking. Caleb doesn't know when he'll stop.

'Did you really agree to letting Dean torture, just to get information?'

'No. I said I would have given anything for him not to have to do this. He was walking through the door to Hell all over again...'


	6. Chapter 6

_This is the final chapter. There will be an epilogue at some point, when I'll give you a teaser for the sequel that will be written, eventually._

* * *

><p>I can hear Alistair singing, talking, screaming, but Dean is silent. Silent as the grave, almost, and that's what scares me.<p>

Ruby reappears in the room, the smell of smoke clinging to her like Hell clings to Dean. 'We shouldn't be letting him do this. Why are we letting him do this?' she questions, flicking the lighter in her hand off and on repeatedly, a nervous tic.

'He's doing God's work,' I repeat my mantra, the only thing I can say, over and over again. God's work, Heaven's plan, it's just, it's right, it's God's will. It has to be. It can't not be. It can't.

'Torturing? That's God's work? Stop him, Cas, or you're gonna ruin the only real weapon we have. We need Dean, or this war isn't worth fighting.'

'Who are we to question the will of God?' I ask.

'Maybe this isn't his will,' she says, placing a hand over mine, gentler than I've ever seen her. Funny how Ruby the demon is more caring, more compassionate than Sitael the angel.

'Then where do the orders come from?' I look at her bleakly. If this isn't God's will, then I've just destroyed everything important to the war (Important to me).

'I don't know. One of the high up angels, maybe Metatron, but not him.' I hear choking in the other room, and Ruby's head whips round to glare through the door. 'The father you love. You think he wants this? You think he'd want Dean to do this? Cas, do you think this,' she throws her arm out, encompassing the room. 'do you think this is right?'

No. I think, but I can't say it out loud. To say it is to disobey.

'Open your freakin' eyes, Cas! This is called doubt, this strange feeling you have. Doubt!'

'You know these orders are wrong. But you can fix this. I know you're afraid, and I was too, but together, you, me and-'

I interrupt, suddenly angry beyond reason. 'Together?' I yank the hand she's touching away. 'I'm nothing like you. You Fell. You're a _demon._ Go.'

She looks at me, grey eyes sharp. 'If you're not going to stop this, I'm going to find someone who'll stop you.'

'Go,' I repeat, my voice dangerous, and she leaves, kicking a chair across the room with a clang and slamming the door behind her.

I listen to Alistair scream, the deadly quiet of Dean as he works. I can't do this. I slam the door open just in time to see that Alistair has eluded the Devil's Trap, and he's slowly killing Dean. I react. Grabbing the knife from the trolley, I watch as he turns around and lodge the knife in his chest, close to his heart but not quite. It sparks gold pitifully and he grins, the blood running from a cut on his temple only serving to make him maniacal. 'Well, almost,' he smirks. 'Looks like God's on my side today,'

I raise a hand and twist the knife slowly. More sparks. Alistair grunts in pain, before pulling the knife out with an effort and tossing it aside before charging at me. We grapple, before he gets the upper hand and throws me against a wall, hand around my neck. Pain fizzles inside me. Angels don't feel pain...

'You're like roaches, you celestials. Now, I really wish I knew how to kill you.' The corners of his mouth tilted downwards in disappointment. 'But, all I can do is send you back to heaven.' He chants in Latin, and I'm filled with the sensation of a month ago, being pushed out of my body and back to heaven. I gasp for breath, feeling the wires connecting me to this plane weakening, snapping. And then it's gone, and I'm back.

Alistair is pinned to the wall, and I am allowed to slump to the ground, blood running into the dirt.

'Stupid pet tricks,' he spits at someone I can't see, and I shift my body until I notice Sam standing in the doorway, hand outstretched. Behind him is Ruby, her eyes black but her wings spread wide, majestic in their decay.

'Who's killing the angels?' she asks, fists clenched. She looks hellish and angelic all at once. 'How?'

'You think I'm gonna tell you?' he chokes.

'Yeah. You are,' Sam says, harsh, he flexes his hand and Alistair's eyes roll white. 'How are they killing the angels?' He repeats Ruby's question.

'I don't know!' Alistair coughs out, blood with it.

'Right.' Sam laughs, but the humour doesn't reach his eyes, and the sound is cold, unfeeling.

'It's not us. We're not doing it!'

'I don't believe you!' Sam shouts, flexing his hand again. Alistair's eyes spin, human, demon, human, demon, all the while he screams.

'Lilith is not behind this! She wouldn't kill seven angels,' he dismisses, choking out a weak laugh. 'She'd kill a hundred, a thousand!'

Sam relaxes slightly, exhausted by the effort. Alistair gulps a breath, breathing in some of his old bravado. 'Oh, go ahead. Send me back, if you can.'

It's the smile that does it. The slightly cocky smile that tells Sam 'you can't do this, and you know it'. His face contorts to a sneer and he snarls at Alistair. 'I'm stronger than that. Now I can kill.' He throws his hand out again and I watch as Alistair disintegrates. Gold flares, and the host drops dead, most likely as a result of the torture, or the sheer hell people are put through when they're possessed. I stand, shakily, as Sam and Ruby rush to Dean. He's barely conscious, and blood is leaking from everywhere. Cuts on his face and lips the back of his shirt is tacky with drying blood from being thrown against the metal used to keep Alistair imprisoned. Sam lifts him like he would a child and carries him out, brushing past me coolly. He has every right to. For all intents and purposes, I did that to Dean.  
>Ruby just looks at me, before following Sam out of the door.<p>

I go to the hospital and wait in the doorway, watching. He's unconscious, his chest rising and falling steadily. Sam sits in the chair next to his bed, his eyes fixed on his brother's bruised and bloody face. I hear sound behind and I turn to see Ruby, arms folded and glaring daggers.

'Ruby...' I start, but she interrupts me.

'Get in there and heal him. Miracle. Fucking now.'

'I can't,' I say honestly.

'You and Junkless put him in there-'

'No,' I try, but she keeps on talking.

'-because you can't make a fucking simple Devil's Trap.'

'I don't know what happened. The Trap...it shouldn't have broken.'

'This whole thing was so fucking pointless,' she hisses, as if I didn't already know. 'You understand? The demons aren't doing this! Something else is killing the angels!'  
>'Maybe Alistair was lying,' I try to defend myself.<p>

'No. He wasn't,' she says, before entering the room and talking to Sam in a low voice. I look at Dean once more and close my eyes, reaching out along the connection between us, willing him to wake up. I knit his broken ribs together and coax him out of unconscious. He splutters awake, clawing at the oxygen tube down his throat, and I leave.

Uriel is sitting in a park. Snow has just finished falling and it's times like this I marvel at the beauty of the world around me. 'Castiel, I received revelation from our superiors. Our brothers and sisters are dying and they...they want us to stop hunting the demon responsible.' I look at him carefully, before sitting next to him.

'Something is wrong up there. Can you feel it?'

'The murders,' I say, thinking out loud. 'Maybe they aren't demonic. Sam Winchester said that the demons had nothing to do with it.'

He looks at me. 'If not the demons, what could it be?'

The only other answer I can think of. Heaven. Always my answer, it seems. 'The will of heaven. We are failing, Uriel. We are losing the war. Perhaps the garrison is being punished.'

'You think our father would...' he trails off.

'I think maybe our father isn't giving the orders anymore. Maybe something there is wrong.'

Uriel stands up, spreading his wings. 'Well I won't wait to be gutted.' He disappears, gliding above the city.

I pace, on the city outskirts by the motel we picked Dean up from earlier.  
>'You'll wear a hole in the road if you keep doing that,' I look up and see Ruby leaning against the lamppost. A cigarette is between her lips, unlit as of yet.<br>I say nothing, yet continue pacing. She doesn't leave, keeps watching me. Eventually, I stop pacing and look at her, lost. 'I'm considering disobedience,' I almost whisper.  
>She nods, slowly, blowing smoke into the air. 'Good.'<p>

'No, it isn't,' I bluster, blank as to how this could be remotely 'good'. 'For the first time, I feel...'

'It gets worse, trust me. Feeling, free will, it's scary as hell.' She puts a hand on my shoulder. I look at it, emotionless, and she drops it. 'That's right. You're too freaking pure for me. I'm just a demon. A walking blasphemy. You know what Cas, fuck you!' She turns to walk away.

'Ruby,' I say again, pleading. She stops and turns back to me. 'I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do.' I'm lost, one angel falling through the air, no flight plan, no orders. I'm not falling, I'm Falling.

'Sorry, Cas. It's time to think for yourself.' She leaves again. This time I let her.

'Was this when you Fell?' Caleb interrupts. 'Or, when Castiel Fell, I mean?'

Jimmy shakes his head. 'He was seriously considering it. I think had things turned out differently, he would have.'

'What happened?' Caleb's coffee is cold again, but he doesn't need or want caffeine.  
>'Uriel happened. He was the one killing angels. He told Castiel to join him and Lucifer or die. Castiel was willing to die for Dean, but he very nearly did die for Heaven. Castiel knew that after that Heaven needed all the angels it could garner, after Uriel thinning the ranks out like that.'<p>

'What about Dean? What happened to him after Alistair?'

'The same thing he always did. He bottled it up and kept fighting. Because if he didn't, who would?'

Jimmy takes a sip of what must be coffee as cold as Caleb's, before continuing. The story he's about to tell has a special meaning for him. He's about to tell the story of how he found his family again, only to have them snatched away. The story of how his daughter was very nearly condemned to the same fate as he had endured for a year.  
>And the story of how the final cog was wheeled into place for the world to fall into Hell.<p>

'Demon blood?'

Jimmy nods. Caleb stares. Sam Winchester, one of the saviours of the world, drinks demon blood? That's where his abilities come from? Jimmy continues. 'So, Sam was thrown into blood rehab for a few days, down in Bobby's panic room.'

'You were trying to flush the blood out of his system?'

'At this point, he was nothing short of a druggie. Since we couldn't afford to wean him off the demon blood, we had to go cold turkey. And it was working. Until I got orders from above.'

'What kind of orders?'

'Sam was to be let out.'

'What? Why?'

'They told me it was to save the world. Now I know that was a load of bull. They wanted the apocalypse to start, they wanted Lucifer to rise so they could kill him and end it. Permanently. They just didn't stop to consider the fact that their saviour, the one who would end it all, decided to go freelance.' Jimmy's eyes darken momentarily and he takes another swallow of the icy sludge in his mug.

'So, Sam started the apocalypse? How?'

'He broke the final seal.'

'What was the final seal?'

'Lilith. He'd been drinking demon blood, and it was making him strong. Strong enough to kill Lilith. Unfortunately, her death, her blood, opened Lucifer's cage.'

'What happened next?'

'Lucifer rose. And Hell rose with him...

I wait for Dean in purgatory. When he arrives, he looks broken, a shell of his former hunting self. It's not hard to see why. His own brother chose demon blood over him, and then tried to kill him when Dean tried to do what he should have done several years ago. His father told him to stop him or save him, and in the end, Dean could do neither.

'Hello Dean.' He flinches. 'It's almost time.'

'Hello Dean.' A voice from behind me. 'You're looking fit.' Zachariah. Of course.  
>'Well how 'bout this?' Dean drawls. 'The Suite Life Of Zach And Cas.' We look at him blankly. 'It's a- never mind. So what is this? Where the hell am I?'<p>

'Call it a green room,' Zachariah suggest with a lazy wave of his hand. 'We're closing in on the finale here. We want to keep you safe before showtime.' He waves lazily again towards the table, piled high with burgers and glass bottles of beer in a puddle of ice. 'Try a burger. They're your favourite. From that seaside shack in Delaware. You were... eleven, I think?'

'I'm not hungry,' he sulks. He just wants to find his brother. I don't understand why we're keeping him here.

'No? How about Ginger from season two of Gilligan's Island? You do have a thing for her, don't you?' Zachariah asks, smarming.

Dean looks confused, then a little disgusted. 'Tempting.' He shakes his head a little. 'Weird.'

'We'll throw in Mary-Ann for free,' he cajoles, but Dean declines.

'No, no, let's... bail on the holodeck, okay? I want to know what the game plan is.' I open my mouth, but Zachariah shoots me a look and I close it. I was dragged back to Heaven for speaking my mind, and I'm in no hurry to do it again.

'Let us worry about that,' he says smoothly. 'We want you focused... relaxed.'

'Well, I'm about to be pissed and leaving, so start talking, chuckles.' Dean growls.

Zachariah sighs. 'All the seals have fallen. Except one.'

'That's an impressive score. That's, that's right up there with the Washington Generals.' Dean smirks, and Zachariah turns nasty.

'You think sarcasm's appropriate, do you? Considering... you started all this? But the final seal... it'll be different.'

'Why?' Dean folds his arms.

'Lilith has to break it. She's the only one who can. Tomorrow... at midnight.'

'Where?'

'We're working on it.'

'Well, work harder,' Dean snaps.

'We'll do our job. You just make sure you do yours.'

'Yeah, and what is that exactly?' he asks. 'If I'm supposed to be the one who stops her, then how? With the knife?'

'All in good time,' Zachariah smoothes over effortlessly.

'Isn't now a good time?' Dean persists, and I can see a miniscule crack appearing in Zachariah's facade.

'Have faith,' he resorts to, eventually.

'What, in you? Give me one good reason why I should.'

Zachariah moves forward into Dean's personal space, noses inches apart. 'Because you swore your obedience. So obey.' Dean looks over Zachariah's shoulder at me. I drop my eyes, unable to meet his gaze.

I return to purgatory, just in time to see Dean smash a statue, deliberately, maliciously. I can't blame him for being angry, I would be too. 'You asked to see me?' I say quietly. He flinches, before turning around guiltily. He clears his throat.  
>'Yeah, listen, I, uh, I need something.'<p>

'Anything you wish.' It's the least I can do.

'I need you to take me to see Sam,' he says, looking at the smashed porcelain figurine on the floor.

'Why?'

'The B.M I took this morning,' he snarls, sarcastic. 'What's it to you? Just make it snappy.'

'I don't think that's wise,' I say carefully, but tact is lost on him at this point.  
>'Well I didn't ask for your opinion,' he snaps.<p>

'Have you forgotten what happened the last time you met?' I remind him.

'No. That's the whole point. Listen, I'm gonna do whatever you mooks want, okay? Just let me tie up this one thing. Five minutes. That's all I need.'

'No,' I say bluntly.

'What do you mean 'no'? Are you saying I'm trapped here?' He moves closer, fists clenching. I'm bigger than Dean, but right now I'm not sure I could beat him in a fight. Anger is a powerful weapon in the hands of Dean Winchester.

'You can go wherever you want.' I try.

'Super. I wanna go see Sam.'

'Except there,' I clarify, and his jaw tightens.

'I want to take a walk.'

'I'll go with you,' I say, and his jaw clenches even more.

'Alone,' he attempts.

'No.' He grinds his teeth before spinning and walking away.

'You know what, screw this noise, I'm outta here.' He heads for the large ornate door at the end of the room, so I do what I can to distract him.

'Through what door?' He turns to face me and with a subtle wave of my hand I alter reality, just a little. When he turns back around and finds the door replaced by wall, he growls. My cue to leave.

When I return, he's dialling Sam's number, over and over again. He's met with static, as I knew he would be. We're outside time, here. 'You can't reach him. You're outside your coverage zone.'

'What are you gonna do to Sam?' he asks, ignoring my statement completely.  
>'Nothing. He's gonna do it to himself.'<p>

'What's that supposed to mean?' he questions, glaring when I don't answer. 'Oh, right, right, gotta toe the company line.' His lip curls in disgust. 'Why are you here, Cas?'

After casting around for some other options, I start with the truth. 'We've been through much together, you and I. And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry it ended like this.'

He laughs, the sound not reaching his eyes, cold and green and dying. '"Sorry?" It's Armageddon, Cas. You need a bigger word than sorry!'

'Try to understand,' I argue. 'This has long been foretold. This is your-'

'Destiny?' he interrupts. 'Don't give me that 'holy' crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families - that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn?'

'What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam.' I snarl back, angry. He fights so hard for a world that can't be saved. It's going to destroy him.

'You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.' He shouts back at me, throwing his hands in the air. I turn away. I don't want to argue, to scream and shout, but he's making it hard for me to have faith. It's like he's shouting down Heaven, as if he could. 'Look at me! You know it! You were gonna help me once, weren't you? You were gonna warn me about all this, before they dragged you back to bible camp. Help me - now. Please.'

'What would you have me do?' I ask dully. He's worn me down, tarnished me.  
>I can't seem to bring myself to care.<p>

'Get me to Sam. We can stop this now, before it's too late.' He urges me. I'm so close. So close to doing it. Turning my back on heaven and fighting with Dean, not against him.

I can't. 'I do that, we will all be hunted. We will all be killed.'

He looks at me, not saying anything, just looking at me. 'If there is anything worth dying for, this is it.' I say nothing. My heart pulls me to Dean, my wings pull me to heaven. If I choose, I must lose one of them. But which one? 'You spineless, soulless son of a bitch. What do you care about dying? You're already dead. We're done.'

It looks like my path has been chosen for me. 'Dean...'

'We're done,' he barks. I leave.

I return. I'm still angry, and I'm sure Dean is too, but I'm tired. Tired of obeying, tired of being a hammer. Tired of not being able to think, speak, do anything for myself. When I arrive, he's just picked up a burger. I grab his shoulder and spin him around, slamming him up against a wall a hand over his mouth. I make a split second decision and move my hand, replacing it with my lips. I'm tired of hiding my feelings, and I'm tired of hiding from them. I don't care if he doesn't feel the same, but maybe doing it will make these feelings stop. I don't like feelings. They're strange and not normal, and they scare me. Or, they used to. Standing here, with my lips pressed against Dean's, one hand fisted in his shirt, the other hand planted on the wall next to his head. There's a moment, stretching out over hours to me where he doesn't respond, and then he goes limp in my arms, his lips responding to mine. He's infinitely more experienced than I am, so when his tongue traces along the outline of my lips, I let him take control of the kiss. After what seems like days, we part, and he smiles slightly. 'That's a hell of a way to get me on your side,' he says gently, resting his forehead on mine. I smile back, before drawing out of his grasp and pulling a knife out. I run it across my arm, and along with feelings, I now have pain. Scarlet blood dribbles to the floor as I dabble my fingers in the blood and draw the sigil I learnt from Ruby a few months ago.

'Castiel! Would you mind explaining just what the hell you're doing?' I ignore him, drawing the last details and slamming my palm against it. In a violent flash of white light, he's literally blown back to heaven.

'He won't be gone long. We have to find Sam now,' I tell him, pulling away from him completely and spreading my wings.

'Where is he?' Dean asks, moving forward off the wall.

'I don't know. But I know who does. We have to stop him, Dean, from killing Lilith.' My wings begin to come alive, the living feathers fluttering in anticipation of the flight.

'But Lilith's gonna break the final seal,' he says, confused.

'Lilith _is_ the final seal. She dies, and the world ends.'

I hold Dean close, and we fly.

We land in Chuck's house. He's on the phone, but he hangs up after seeing us. Ruby is lazing on the sofa using an eggcup as an ashtray and filling the house with a steady stream of smoke. 'Well look at that. Bambi broke you out of Guantanamo all by himself. Finally grow a pair?'

Dean shrugs grimly, grabbing Chuck by his dressing gown and lifting him a couple of inches of the ground. 'Sam,' he growls, and Chuck blanches a little.

Ruby rises languidly from the sofa, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder. 'Hey, macho man. Giving him a stroke isn't going to find your brother any faster.'

With an effort, and a few deep breaths, Dean lowers him to the ground. Check straightens his dressing gown in a vain attempt to scramble together some dignity, before grabbing a sheaf of paper and flicking through the typed pages. 'St Mary's.' He says it with finality, grabbing the half empty bottle of amber liquid that sits by the sofa.

'St Mary's? What is that, a convent?' Dean asks, finally resembling calm and cool.  
>'Yeah, but you guys aren't supposed to be there. You're not in this story.' Chuck flips through the novel once more.<p>

'Yeah, well...' I start to explain, shooting a look at Dean. 'We're making it up as we go along.'

Chuck watches the look and I have a strange feeling that he knows exactly what happened in purgatory.

Suddenly, the windows rattle and light fills the room. 'Not again,' moans Chuck, and Ruby swears and stubs her cigarette out. 'Your fucking brother's here, Bambi! Time to get the hell out of Dodge!'

I take a deep breath, take Dean's hand in mine and Ruby's hand on the other, and I spread my wings and fly, soaring high above the clouds. A demon, an angel and a hunter, flying to save the world.

We land in Maryland, just outside the convent and we see Sam come flying out the door just as the same burning white light as in Chuck's home engulfs us all. He races towards us, falling into his brother's arms as tears dribble down his face. 'I'm sorry,' he gasps out, and they embrace, all their sins towards each other forgotten in this one moment.

'Shit.' Ruby grinds out the word, and we turn. She has her back to us, towards the town, and emerging from the shadows are demon after demon, their black eyes staring at us. At the front is someone neither angel nor demon. His wings are as rotten as Ruby's, but there's something otherworldly about him. Ruby could pass for human, to a human, anyway, but no one would mistake him for human. His Grace burns so bright the brothers have to squint to look at him.

My brother always was the brightest of us all. It's why our Father called him Lucifer. Morning Star.

We stand in a row, four against four hundred, ready to fight the devil and then, the curious rustle of wings and feathers and scales behind us, and Zachariah emerges from the church, a legion of angels with him. The demons flee. Lucifer knows he can't fight heaven, not yet. So he grins at us, and vanishes, his rotten wings taking him high into the night sky. Leaving us with the wrath of the angels.

Zachariah smiles, raising the angel killing sword.

The sound of snapping fingers crackle through the air, and everything is gone. It's like being suspended in nothingness...


	7. Epilogue

'...and that's all I remember, up until waking up in Bobby Singer's house, and it's six months later.'

'How come you don't remember?' Caleb asks, shredding a napkin between long pale fingers.

Jimmy shrugs. 'I wish I knew. Then I might get the memories back. That's all I can tell you though. I deliberately haven't asked anyone else who survived what happened.'  
>'Why?'<p>

'I don't want to know. Castiel died, Dean died, me, Sam and Ruby survived. That's all I know, and that's all I want to know.'

'But what about Castiel and De-'

'That's why.' He interrupts, standing up. 'If you want to know, you'll have to read the rest of your book.' He shakes Caleb's hand and leaves. 'Good luck with your paper.'

Caleb nods and watches him leave before ordering another coffee and delving into his bag for the book, flipping it open to the folded over page corner and reading.

He reads about Michael, the archangel, and his supposed vessel in Dean, and Lucifer's in Sam. He reads about how they band together after Sam started the apocalypse and their relationship tears at the seams. Ruby holds them together, Ruby and Castiel. Dean's fairly sure Ruby and Sam are sleeping together, but he doesn't care. He's a little preoccupied being conflicted by his feelings for Castiel. He loves the angel, he knows that. Castiel rescued him from hell, he's seen his soul and still cares for him, saves him, protects him. And yet Dean knows he can't love anyone. It hurts too much. He writes about maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he doesn't care that Castiel is inches from Falling just for loving him, maybe he doesn't care that if he gives up his heart to Castiel, he won't get it back.

He reads about Gabriel, crashing into the small group fighting for free will's lives, unmasking himself. They treat him with caution, and then later, grudging respect. Dean doesn't like him, but he's civil, because he knows that the angel can snap his fingers and jumpstart Dean into saying yes at any moment. With him comes another angel, one that Dean had heard of, but assumed would be on Team Destiny. Azrael, the angel of death left Heaven with Gabriel and followed him everywhere. The oldest of the angels, Azrael had seen Lucifer's fall first hand and he'd watched his Father leave, and he'd watched Gabriel leave, and he'd followed. Dean had grumbled about how the angels and demons now outnumbered the humans, but he slowly grew used to having the feathered beings about.

And then Death rose. And Bobby brought more hunters in. Ellen and Jo died fighting to save the world, the first to die in the battle for free will. Bobby was never the same after their deaths, and Dean writes that the first casualty is like a first kiss. You never forget. He mourns them for pages after their death, not even Sam, not even Castiel being able to stop the hurt.

And then Lucifer creates Croatoan, and the world comes crashing to its knees. Three weeks. That's how long it takes for the world to tumble. Team Free Will, as Dean's taken to dubbing the ragtag band of heaven and hell outcasts, along with Chuck, the prophet and a few survivors from Sioux Falls, where they've been based for the past month and a half retire to Camp Chitaqua, an old Summer Camp, and set up Ground Zero. They hold it for a month, defending it against mindless zombies and cannibalistic Croats.

And then they get a call. On the old police radio Dean has set up in his cabin, always listening for survivors, a voice crackles out. They're in a church, somewhere in Arizona. Dean and Castiel, Ruby and Gabriel, and Azrael following like he always does. It's his job to take lost souls home, and he's never had to find as many wandering spirits as he has in the last month.

The last journal entry is the night before they drive out to the survivor. After is a rough handwritten note on the bottom of the page.

_ 'They never came home. S' _

Tear marks graze the page, blurring the ink.

S. Sam. It has to be.

Caleb wipes away a tear he never knew he was crying and closes the book. He throws down some money for the drink and leaves, returning to his apartment and writing his paper. He has to get the words out, he doesn't know what they'll do to him to keep them bottled inside.

He walks into the lecture theatre the next day, the paper in his hand, several pages long. Wesson is sitting at the desk, marking something, flicking ticks with a red biro. Caleb drops the paper onto his desk and Wesson looks up questioningly. 'My paper,' Caleb says, and walks away. Wesson watches him leave before reading the paper, reaching the end half an hour later.

_'...In the end, all an angel can ever be is faithful. It shouldn't matter whether or not his faith is for heaven ,or someone or something else, the defining characteristic of an angel is always faith. An angel without faith is little more than a human with wings.'_

Sam Winchester looks up into the empty lecture theatre for a few moments. If there was anything that Castiel ever had in him, it was faith.  
>FIN<p>

* * *

><p><em>And that completes And Then I Crashed Into You (And I Went Up In Flames)<em>

_Thanks to everyone for reading, adding me to your alerts and favourites._

_Special thanks to my reviewers:_

_-Lover-Fighter-Writer_

_-AngelisIgniRelucent _

_-Ziggymia123_

_-Paulathe cat_

-_Becks Rylynn_

_Love and kisses to you all!_

_The next multichapter I'll be posting on here is This Ain't A Song For The Broken Hearted (It's Just My Life) and it's Inception. See my profile for more detail. The next scheduled non-crossover Supernatural fic I have is Walk Away From The Sun (You're Fading Every Day) -side note, I really love using brackets and song lyrics in titles- and it's a giant AU retelling of seasons four and five for the deancasbigbang. Which should be posted around about... August, I think._

_One last thing, if you have a tumblr, then feel free to check out .com and follow my secondary blog, used for posting snippets of soon to be finished fics, teasers for sequels of fics, and maybe even some scenes that were cut out in the editing of fics._

_Anyway. Until next time._

_Cantati, May 2011.  
><em>


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